FEMINISTS TO SPEAK OUT AGAINST ABORTION
Patricia Heaton and Serrin Foster to Address UCLA

Two-time Emmy^® Award winner Patricia Heaton and Serrin Foster, President of Feminists for Life of America, will present "Refuse to Choose: Women Deserve Better than Abortion" at 7 p.m., Tuesday, April 17, 2007 in Moore Hall on the campus of University of California-Los Angeles.  The lecture will recall more than 200 years of pro-life feminism and explain how the modern women's movement came to support abortion.  In light of recent controversy about the lack of pregnancy resources at UCLA, Heaton and Foster will also talk about what universities can do to provide support for pregnant and parenting students on campus.

Founded in 1972, FFL is a national non-sectarian, grassroots organization that continues the efforts of the early American feminists, including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, to systematically eliminate the root causes that drive women to abortion by facilitating practical solutions.  FFL has emerged as the link between the pro-life and pro-choice organizations, working on legislative efforts such as child support enforcement and the Violence Against Women Act, and opposing the child exclusion provisions in welfare reform. 

Feminists for Life has distributed pregnancy resource kits to colleges across the country and is leading a discussion on developing practical resources for pregnant and parenting students.  Planned Parenthood's INsider newsletter called the program "the newest and most challenging concept" in college organizing and predicted that it "could have a profound impact" on colleges as well as on Planned Parenthood's education and advocacy efforts. 

Most recently, FFL’s efforts on college campuses have inspired the introduction of the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Pregnant and Parenting Student Services Act of 2007.  The bill, which has already been introduced in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, would provide grants to eligible institutions of higher education to establish student services offices for students who are pregnant, parenting a child, or anticipating a birth or adoption.

Patricia Heaton is best known for her role as Debra Barone on the award-winning series “Everybody Loves Raymond.”  Ms. Heaton won two Emmy^® Awards for her role in Raymond, and recently received her sixth nomination. Ms. Heaton is also the recipient of the Best Comedy Actress award from the Viewers for Quality Television, a Screen Actors Guild award and three SAG nominations in the Best Actress category for her role on Raymond.   

In 2001, Ms. Heaton co-founded FourBoys Films, a production company that she runs with her husband David Hunt.  Most recently, Ms. Heaton and Mr. Hunt produced the 2007 movie Amazing Grace, the story of William Wilberforce, the man who changed the culture in Great Britain to reject slavery and ultimately influenced the world to reject it as well.  Ms. Heaton will star this fall in 20^th Century Fox’s new television comedy “Action News” with Kelsey Grammer.   

Today, Ms. Heaton is a real-life wife and mother of four sons and an advocate for other women and their children in her role as Feminists for Life’s Honorary Chair.   

Serrin Foster has led Feminists for Life since 1994.  Under her leadership FFL successfully advocated benefits for poor and pregnant women through the State Child Health Insurance Program, defeated the mandatory “family cap” and other punitive child exclusion provisions in welfare reform, and worked to prevent poverty and coerced abortions due to threats to withhold child support through passage of the Enhanced Child Support Act of 1995. 

Ms. Foster served on the National Task Force Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, which worked to pass the Violence Against Women Act.   In 2003, Ms. Foster testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in support of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, also known as “Laci and Conner’s Law.” 

Foster’s landmark speech, “The Feminist Case Against Abortion,” has been recognized as one of the “Great Speeches in History” in an anthology on Women’s Rights.  The creator of the Women Deserve Better^® than abortion campaign has appeared on C-SPAN, CNN International, and most recently FOX News and ABC World News Tonight to fight pregnancy discrimination.

The lecture will be held at 7:00 p.m. in Moore Hall on the campus of UCLA on Tuesday, April 17. For more information or to schedule an interview contact FFL at 415-571-8373 or media@feministsforlife.org.  On April 16, Ms. Foster and Ms. Heaton were scheduled to moderate a Pregnancy Resource Forum at Pepperdine University.