2011 Life Prizes award winners announced!
Press statement just released. Congrats to all!
LIFE PRIZES ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF $600,000 PRO-LIFE AWARD
The Gerard Health Foundation Awards Pro-Life Movement’s Greatest Heroes
Natick, MA – The Gerard Health Foundation is pleased to announce the 2009-2010 winners of its Life Prizes award, granted to six individuals or organizations that have achieved significant progress in promoting the sanctity of human life and are working to protect and preserve it.
The first Life Prizes awards were presented at a ceremony in 2009; the winners of this year’s $600,000 in awards were chosen by a Selection Advisory Committee from 90 nominations submitted to the Foundation. Members of this Committee include Richard Doerflinger of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Peggy Hartshorn of Heartbeat International; Kay Coles James of the Gloucester Institute; and Jack Willke of Life Issues Institute.
“We are pleased to present the second Life Prizes to such deserving recipients,” stated Raymond Ruddy, President of the Gerard Health Foundation. “These six winners are doing some of the pro-life movement’s most important work, and it is right to celebrate their sacrifice and dedication. Each of them is an example to follow and we look forward to their future accomplishments in the cause of life.”
The $600,000 in prize money will be divided among the following six winners:
- Jeanne Head – A force to be reckoned with at the United Nations, Jeanne Head left her career as an obstetrics nurse to fight for the protection of the most vulnerable members of the human family on the international stage. As UN Representative for National Right to Life and a Representative of the International Right to Life Federation, she debates the most politically powerful – from the Oval Office to members of the UN Security Council.
- Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network – In 2005, the world watched as a young woman with disabilities was deprived of food and water by order of a judge. Her family has vowed to fight for the right to life of disabled and vulnerable men and women everywhere, and their network has provided assistance to more than 1,000 families through a national network of resources, support, and medical facilities for the medically-dependent, persons with disabilities, and those incapacitated in life-threatening situations.
- Douglas Johnson – The indispensible man behind all of the greatest pro-life victories in Congress since Roe v. Wade is National Right to Life Committee Legislative Director Doug Johnson. His keen strategy and consummate research have served the pro-life movement from behind the scenes for three decades.
- Kristan Hawkins – Young people today are overwhelmingly pro-life, and Students for Life of America and its Executive Director Kristan Hawkins have taken a leading role in engaging young people across the country in pro-life efforts through innovative use of the internet and increasing Students for Life chapters by the hundreds.
- Reverend Alveda King – It is altogether fitting that the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr. would become one of the most important leaders in the greatest civil rights battle of our day. As founder of King for America, Dr. Alveda King has been the public face of the pro-life movement in the African American community, speaking and advocating for years against abortion and especially the targeting of African Americans.
- Marie Smith – There is a global pro-abortion agenda and Marie Smith has made it her mission to identify, unite, and strategize with pro-life groups, lawmakers, and religious leaders to advance respect for life in law and policy. Ms. Smith is the Director of the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues, a non-partisan global outreach of Gospel of Life Ministries.
The awards will be presented at a ceremony held in Washington, DC on Saturday, January 22, 2011.
More information is available at www.LifePrizes.org
About Life Prizes
Life Prizes is a program that awards those who have succeeded in awakening the conscience of America to uphold and preserve the sanctity of human life through their leadership and advances in public advocacy, scientific research, outreach and public disclosure activities, legal action, and other noteworthy achievements. The award is named the “Norinne A. and Raymond E. Ruddy Memorial Pro-Life Prize” to memorialize Mr. and Mrs. Raymond E. Ruddy, strong believers in the pro-life cause and parents of Raymond B. Ruddy, a pro-life philanthropist who has long supported and donated to life causes and charities throughout the world. In addition to recognizing those on the front lines of saving lives and who have most significantly advanced pro-life principles and practices, the initiative seeks to encourage and inspire the next generation of youth to accomplish great things in the name of life.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
HOORAY KRISTAN!!!
A marvelous slate of winners! God continue to bless their work!!
Hooray for Alveda King!
Wonderful!! Congratulations, all!
I hope the individuals who won these prizes will use them to try to help poor pregnant women actually support and provide for their children once they’re born. If not,they are the most contemptible hypocrites.
I anti-choicers were intellectually honest,they would do more to try to get the government to provide more financial help for poor pregnant women instead of merely protesting at abortion facilities, spreading lies and misinformation about the alleged dangers of contraceptives and having abortions, hysterical false reports about the utterly discredited link between abortion and breast cancer, blatant lies about Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger and shamelessly manipulative photos of alleged aborted fetuses which are actually doctored photos of miscarried
fetuses and stillborns.
All of these tactics are not only totally futile but disastrously counterproductive.
So awesome! All deserving but I am especially excited about NRLC’s Doug Johnson and Jeanne Head. I worked closely with Doug over Ben Nelson’s months of stringing us along on Obamacare. What an intellect he has. And Jeanne has been tirelessly holding back the forces of death at the United Nations for years. I like the mix of winners that Life Prizes selected as well, a good cross section of the pro-life movement.
spreading lies and misinformation about the alleged dangers of contraceptives and having abortions, hysterical false reports about the utterly discredited link between abortion and breast cancer, blatant lies about Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger and shamelessly manipulative photos of alleged aborted fetuses which are actually doctored photos of miscarried fetuses and stillborns.
Yes, and when you have actual proof that all those claims are “hysterical” and “false”, please do let us know.
“shamelessly manipulative photos of alleged aborted fetuses which are actually doctored photos of miscarried fetuses and stillborns.”
There are two very simply replies to this.
1. If the pictures we show are false, then please provide actual photos of abortions. I assume you have seen actual photos of abortions since you are confident in your assertion that the photos are doctored.
2. Let’s try and put 2 and 2 together. Google some images of a, say, 8 week old fetus to see what it looks like. Find some on any “non-anti-choice” site. Now, google “abortion techniques” and find the way that a typical pro-choice doctor or pro-choicer describes the suction curettage method of abortion (the one usually done in the first trimester). Now put 2 and 2 together. Image what the result would be if you took the 8 week old fetus and applied the abortion technique to it as described by pro-choice websites. This idea can easily be generalized to a fetus in teh second or third trimester. Google image for a fetus of whatever age you want, google teh abortion technique employed for a fetus of that age, read how it is described, and imagine what the results would look like. In this light, the pictures are certainly not a stretch. Perhaps the age of teh fetus is sometimes off, but it is nonetheless a human being that is being killed in an abortion.
Congratulations to the winners!!!
Robert wrote:
I hope the individuals who won these prizes will use them to try to help poor pregnant women actually support and provide for their children once they’re born. If not,they are the most contemptible hypocrites.
Robert, get some sense, will you? If they do, then you’ll berate them for “funding those horrid, propaganda-spreading, lying, hypocritical, so-called Crisis Pregnancy Care Centers”, wouldn’t you? Members of your side of the issue have been working like demons to get such places closed; if you’d like to sniff out hypocrisy, start there.
(*ergh*) Now *I’m* feeding trolls! Where’s my shovel?
I’m still waiting for the anti-lifers to show us some bloodless and pretty aborted fetus pictures.
*Cue Jeopardy theme song*
Still waiting.
*crickets chirp*
Still waiting…
Yay!!! Dr. Alveda King, she is awesome if you ever get a chance to hear her speak, do so.
I love it prolifers. Yes let’s have some pretty bloodless pictures of aborted “fetuses”.
Robert,
It would be nice if you showed a little class and simply congratulated the winners.
It would be better if you demonstrated your formidible critical thinking skills and realized that the Federal and State governments have spent into the trillions of dollars on welfare, WIC, federal and state college grants for minorities, headstart, no child left behind tutoring money for at risk stidents, contract set-asides for minority businesses, guarantees and tax breaks for minority businesses, medicaid, state college scholarship monies for minorities, preferential hiring for city, state, federal jobs… The list is endless. I know from the erudition in your posts that you read the papers. Hence, my astonishment at your suggestion. Pro-lifers need to militate for more than the mind-boggling generosity, care and concern that this great nation has extended for over forty years to the economically disenfranchised??? REALLY???
It would be even better if you actually put your considerable intelligence (and you are definitely one sharp dude) to work by reading the astounding body of peer-reviewed scientific literature from which we get those facts which your ideology causes you to categorize as misinformation.
I still have a decent liberal streak in me from my youth, and apart from his pro-choice stance, one of my favorite liberals was New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. (You remind me of him in many ways, Robert). Moynihan was fond of telling those to the left of him that they were entitled to their own opinions, but that they were not entitled to their own facts. The same with the truth we share from the mainstream scientific literature.
As for how they use that prize money, any use is fine with me–even personal. Pro-lifers do what we do at a significant economic loss compared to what we could be making in the corporate sector.
Now come on Robert. Just congratulate them and hold your fire for another thread. Meet me in DC for the RTL March in January and we can solve all of this over a few beers and a steak! My Treat!
God Bless.
Moynihan was fond of telling those to the left of him that they were entitled to their own opinions, but that they were not entitled to their own facts.
Thanks for sharing that, Gerard. I shall quote it frequently.
Still waiting for those peaceful, pretty pictures…
Robert – most seasoned pro-lifers want to help poor women and their families AND DO!
I just had surgery yesterday – and do you know the first two calls from friends were two women we have helped their families.
We help families with food, clothing, furniture, rent payments, utility payments, transportation in yearly bus passes, drives to the doctor’s office, to the unemployment office, etc. And that does not mention diapers, wipes and things for the babies. We stay with them if they go for doctor’s check-ups, and arrange even proper burial for their miscarried children.
I’m even considering cooking lessons and tips so they can feed their family healthier food and save money too.
Go out and meet some real pro-lifers and visit your local CPC. you probably would be surprised at the help out there for woman in need. We truly exist and we are all over the country.