Proudly Pro-Life Awards Dinner Honors Fr. Pavone and Lawrence Garvey.(Brief Article)

The timing could not have been more exquisite. Mere hours after the House of Representatives began debate on the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (UVVA), pro-lifers honored two great champions at the Eighth Annual Proudly Pro-Life Awards Dinner: Fr. Frank Pavone and Lawrence Garvey.

The UVVA is not a pro-life bill per se. But in nudging Congress in a direction of recognizing that "wanted" unborn children killed in the commission of federal crimes truly are victims, the bill helps Americans see the unborn in a new light.

Fr. Pavone, founder of Priests for Life, in his acceptance remarks talked a great deal about the need to change American culture in a more life-affirming direction. Mr. Garvey, whose remarks were also delightful, is a longtime pro-life champion, whose pro-life commitments including helping to make possible a number of NRLC's opinion-shifting advertising campaigns.

Indeed, part of what made the debate over the UVVA "as charged as any of the abortion debates of past years," according to the New York Times, was a series of educational ads that retraced the tragic story of a Wisconsin woman, Tracy Scheide Marciniak. Marciniak was attacked by her then husband when she was nine months pregnant. Her son, Zachariah, was stillborn. The UVVA passed the House on April 26 by a vote of 252-172.

The large audience that gathered April 25 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City could not have been more complimentary to the two honorees.

Both honorees were terrific in different ways. Mr. Garvey is a quiet man, Fr. Pavone much more demonstrative. Mr. Garvey, along with his brother Donald, founded Radiofone in 1958. He was a pioneer in the industry that developed the cellular phones that we all now find so indispensable. He has received numerous awards for his business and charitable accomplishments. ...