LHHL 2005 Award
Acceptance Speech by Gerry Oftedahl

Thank you, Carol, LHHL Committee Board members and co-sponsors. This is unexpected and, truthfully, not the reason I established this committee.  I truly do appreciate receiving the award and, again, thank you.

Let’s think of the man whose name graces this event, Dr. Leo Holmsten.  His pro-life work, leadership and role model were invaluable but available to us for too few years.  Even now, 8 years after his death, when I mention the Leo Holmsten Human Life Committee, I hear: “Oh he was my doctor – or my mother’s doctor when I was born.”  Neither he nor his work is forgotten.  It is an honor to have his son and daughter-in-law: Dan & Tina Holmsten here tonight.

There are other people to introduce.  As I name each, please stand immediately but let’s hold the applause to do it once for all.  Original and still working LHHL Board Members are Diann Conquest and Fr. John Reif.  Past and present Board members, here tonight, are Tom Beck, Robert Burke, Jr. Rebecca Fadner, George Green, Robert Hammond, Dorothy Hayes, Madeline Roeding and Cathy Wiedemer.  We all thank you all.    

I do appreciate the recollections and thoughts of George & Mary, Jann, Ernie, Gina & Tom and Carol.  Finally, thanks to my husband Ed and our daughters, Regina and Christina.  Their help and patience through years of fast foods and doing mailings were heroic. 

We adopted children in 1970 and 1972.  Gina and Chris were daily reminders of the miracle and gift of life.  Involvement in the pro-life movement only required finding out what to do and how to do it.

Rochester Area Right to Life Committee, Inc. was established in 1969 by bright people who recognized the need to educate and advocate for life.  Among those pioneers present tonight are Bob Burke, Sr. Pat Dykstra, Carol Leary, Bill Polito, Jeanne Sweeney, Tom Sweeney and George Wiedemer.

25 years as a Board Member/officer of RARTL has meant calendars full of meetings, reading and also writing hundreds of newsletters, doing research about law, medicine, biology, government, postal regulations and more, making presentations and planning 8 conventions.  Also I helped establish Faith Haven and spent time with pregnant women living there.  During my years on the Catholic Family Center Board, I worked on adoption programs.  While teaching at area colleges, I had opportunities to give pro-life information to college students who thought they wanted abortions and knew nothing about their babies.  Doing whatever I could, including outreach to others to do whatever they could do to restore respect for innocent, human life was unavoidable.

When the U.S. Supreme Court made abortion legal, legislative action became important.  We still must limit abortion by passing pro-life laws and opposing pro-abortion laws – damage control until the Court decision is overturned.  Like most people, I had forgotten the 6th grade Civics classes about how government works.  There were two brilliant, patient men who gave me abundant legislative information and the time to discuss and learn it.  Both long deceased, I am forever grateful to Tom Thrasher, Administrative Assistant to former Congressman Fred Eckert and especially to the gold-standard of pro-life representation, Assemblyman Roger Robach. 

On a break from the local RARTL Board, I was asked to join the New York State Right to Life Committee Board of Directors.  Ernie Ohlhoff, a valued mentor and friend, has shared some detail about that time.  Also here tonight are two current NYSRTL staff members:  Education Director: Maeve Finley and Legislative Director Christine Fadden-Fitch. 

From the NYSRTL years I learned the importance of working on the issue at the local, state and national levels as each has different needs and opportunities.  Education, advocacy and political action. 

must always be the center pieces on the pro-life table, covered with a tablecloth of prayers. 

Abortion numbers are now slightly reduced down from 1.6 to 1.3 million a year.  Abortion remains an American tragedy, a preventable tragedy.  We know we will be victorious, but it will be in the Lord’s time.  We must continue to educate, advocate and, especially, do outreach to teens and young adults constantly urged to choose abortion by groups like Planned Parenthood, NARAL and others.  We are opposed by some churches, organizations, the media and some prominent people.  They are well funded and able to buy goods and services well beyond our modest budgets.  But we work for truth and in gratitude to Our Creator.  We will ultimately prevail.

Abortion remains challenging and euthanasia’s dangers are rapidly rising.  That was evident in what was done to and not done for Terri Schiavo.  If you haven’t yet, please get and use a “Will to Live,” available online from NRLC or at the RARTL office.

Opposition to abortion and euthanasia is ongoing and always needs workers and prayers.  Now there is another challenge: stem cell research and therapy.   I support adult stem cell therapy which uses stem cells obtained without killing anyone.  Also, adult stem cells have been successfully used in treating more than 65 illnesses and injuries of people of all ages.  Conversely, embryonic stem cell therapy is an unproven idea which, to date, is responsible for 0, I repeat, 0 cures, of any medical condition, despite already enormous expenditures

Who hasn’t heard Nancy Reagan wants embryonic stem cell research to find a cure for Alzheimer’s?  Remember Christopher Reeve’s pleas for embryonic stem cell treatments for his spinal cord injury?  Media coverage of embryonic stem cell research shamelessly writes about promises as if they were facts.  Next time you hear or read a news story on embryonic stem cell research, count how often you hear words like “could, might, may, likely, probably”   Meanwhile, little to no coverage is given to the exciting and effective results of adult stem cell therapy which does not kill embryos – unborn human beings - to get their stem cells. 

In October Dr. David Prentice, a recognized stem cell authority and excellent speaker, will give at least 3 presentations on stem cells’ myths and promises.  The schedules are available at the Diocese of Rochester display table.  These are opportunities not to miss.

Adult stem cell therapy needs to be more available.  To accomplish both education about it and to help persons obtain it, a group called Adult Stem Cell Initiatives has been formed.  Now being incorporated, recognition as a not-for-profit corporation will then be sought.  Adult Stem Cell Initiatives has submitted the records of a local, young man with a spinal cord injury to be treated with adult stem cell therapy in Portugal where there have been many successful treatments.  If he is accepted, Adult Stem Cell Initiatives will cover the cost.  Traditional earlier treatments in the U.S. had not helped him.  Losing time waiting for adult stem cell therapy to be available here was too great a risk as his injury is already several years old. 

In the pro-life efforts, there is the constant, ongoing need for prayer that we know the will of the Lord and have the requisite patience to work to achieve His will.  Encouraging individuals and groups doing pro-life work is the LHHL Committee’s primary mission.  Remarkably, LHHL now has 23, co-sponsoring organizations, a national record, I believe.  Please support as many as possible financially or by volunteering.  All work to make differences for life.

Again, thanks for the proclamation, award and banquet.  More importantly, thanks for the pro-life efforts each of you has done and is doing.  Let’s continue to figuratively hold hands, as we literally do all we can to restore respect for innocent, human life, born and unborn.

(Gerry Oftedahl’s acceptance speech at the LHHL dinner, September, 2005)

Updated on RARTL July, 2006