REGISTER NOW: Get your walking shoes ready and join us on the 15th of January for the PLC Steps for Life in Portmarnock, Dublin!

Last Friday, Conor O’Dowd, a young man from Drogheda with Down syndrome, hand delivered a letter to Professor Fergal Malone in the Rotunda Hospital in response to Professor Malone’s recent remarks that 95% of parents who receive a diagnosis in the Rotunda that their unborn baby has Down syndrome opt for abortion.

Before Conor delivered his handwritten letter, he recorded a short video outside the Rotunda where he relayed the contents of his message to Professor Malone.

In the video, Conor says: “I love my life” and asks Professor Malone, “What are you telling parents? Tell them the truth.” He continues: “Please save babies with Down Syndrome” and adds that what’s happening is “very wrong and very unfair.”

Conor’s dad, Michael O’Dowd of Disability Voices for Life, who accompanied his son to the Rotunda told Newstalk radio in an interview earlier this week that he believes parents in these situations are being told about all the problems associated with having a child with Down Syndrome rather than being informed about a positive social model that focuses on the supports available and how young people with Down Syndrome can live a long, healthy and fulfilling life. He said: “There needs to be a change in attitude among medical professionals to the issue of disability and the contribution of people with disabilities to society.”

Watch Conor’s powerful message to Professor Malone here.

Steven Tyler, the lead singer of American rock group Aerosmith, is being sued by a woman who claims they had a sexual relationship when she was 16 years old. The lawsuit accuses Tyler of sexual battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Rolling Stone magazine reports that the lawsuit also alleges that he forced her to have an abortion.

The woman suing Tyler is Julia Holcomb. Today, she is a well known pro-life advocate and was the keynote speaker at the Pro Life Campaign’s National Conference in the RDS, Dublin in 2014.

At the conference, she spoke about the devastating effect the late term abortion had on her and the horrifying detail that her baby survived the abortion and was left to die.

The lawsuit against Tyler has been filed under the California Child Victims Act, under which the statute of limitations is temporarily lifted at present for survivors of childhood abuse.

For more than a decade, Julia Holcomb has been a committed pro-life campaigner and assists the work of groups like Silent No More which consists of women who regret their abortions and publicly share their testimonies. The group also provides support to women who are searching for hope and healing after their abortions.

A new medical school in the US that is unapologetically pro-life is scheduled to open in 2026.

The key figure behind the undertaking is anesthesiologist Dr. George Mychaskiw. The model he has devised means that an already established university campus will host the pro-life school without officially running it. The campus where the medical school will be situated is Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.

In a recent interview, Dr Mychaskiw explains how the plan came to fruition. He said: “I developed a model for a private, independent, separately funded, accredited and governed medical school to reside on a host college campus, so that the medical school could enjoy the student life and academic advantages of a large university and the university could have a medical school on its campus, without the tremendous expense and development complexities.”

In the same interview, he shared the vision for the pro-life school of medicine: “This medical school will stand for the life and dignity of each and every human being… from conception until natural death… These physicians will take back the culture of death and set things right in our very broken health care system and serve as a model for other physicians and medical schools to do what is right, rather than what is popular.”

It is very encouraging to see a project like this underway. It’s something that hopefully at some point in the not too distant future will also happen in Ireland!