Feminists for Life president Serrin Foster will speak at 7 p.m. Nov. 19 in Hart Chapel. Her landmark speech, “The Feminist Case Against Abortion,” has been included in “Great Speeches in History: Women’s Rights,” an anthology on women's rights by Greenhaven Press. The talk is free and open to the public.
Shaped by the core feminist values of justice, nondiscrimination and nonviolence, FFL successfully advocated benefits for poor and pregnant women through the state Child Health Insurance Program. FFL has also worked in coalition with other women's organizations to defeat the mandatory "family cap" and other punitive child exclusion provisions in welfare reform, and has helped to prevent poverty and coerced abortions due to threats to withhold child support through passage of the Enhanced Child Support Act.
In January 1997, Foster moderated the first FFL Pregnancy Resource Forum at Georgetown University. This became a model for the country and in 2010 became the basis for Pregnancy Assistance Fund grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Foster has focused on developing on-campus resources and support for under-served pregnant and parenting students. She served on the National Taskforce Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, which worked to pass the Violence Against Women Act, and she also testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in support of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, also called Laci and Conner's Law. She is an outspoken opponent of pregnancy discrimination.
Foster's visit is sponsored by Students for Life, the Newman Association and the Pregnancy and Parenting Resources Initiative and is partially funded by a grant from the Leadership Institute.