The Celebrate Life Conference The News from California: All Good!

The first weekend in April proved to be as bright and sunny as could be hoped for on the San Francisco peninsula in springtime. A very important detail in planning the Celebrate Life Conference at Stanford University, to be sure, and one that helped to enhance the exuberant atmosphere created by the over 100 pro-life students who attended.

The effort to build a strong coalition between the many northern California universities and colleges has been underway for a few years. It is a wonderful thing to note that this coalition-building has been primarily led by the young women and men on those same campuses. Concerned as they are about the devastation done by legalized abortion to their generation, these brave members of the current student body have attempted to rattle the cages of the "politically correct" about life issues at both the faculty and student levels.

The Celebrate Life Conference held at Stanford University brought together over a hundred student leaders and some faculty supporters. Seven schools were represented including, Berkeley, Stanford, the University of San Francisco, the University of California Davis, and others. The workshops addressed a wide range of issues that today's students need to be conversant with and speakers acknowledged the unique needs that students face when working to build a strong pro-life presence on campus.

The workshop presented by Olivia Gans called "When They Say, You Say" was packed. The proposition of the workshop was simple: there really are no new arguments against the pro-life position. Thus everyone can learn to be a marvelously effective defender of innocent life.

At the end of her workshop Miss Gans invited the students to try to find a question that could stump her. The lively effort of those in the room proved to be to no avail! All who attended were eager to start testing out these new skills right away.

Workshops that illustrated the current legal situation, as well as some of the political and judicial issues surrounding Roe v. Wade in history, gave the pro-life students a new frame of reference. Dr. Michael New, himself a founder of the Stanford pro-life group, was a co-presenter in that session.

Other speakers addressed the basics of raising money and building teams of support on campus in order to strengthen the efforts of any college group. The Internet - - its marvelous capacity to get the word out far, wide, and quickly - - was discussed in several of the workshops.