On January 24, more than 800 students, faculty, staff, and graduate students from the University of Notre Dame, Holy Cross College, and St. Mary’s College will participate in the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., now in its 47th year. Thanks to generous underwriting by the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, in partnership with the Notre Dame Right to Life student club, the university consistently sends one of the largest single contingents to participate in the event, year after year.

“Once again, the entire University of Notre Dame is proud to join in this joyful public witness to the inherent dignity of every human life,” said O. Carter Snead, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. “It is so encouraging to see our amazing students of Notre Dame joining the hundreds of thousands at the march to peacefully proclaim that our brothers and sisters in the womb deserve our love and respect and the equal protection of the law.”

This year, the dCEC will provide more travel grants to faculty, staff, and graduate students than ever before. “Notre Dame is well represented at the march thanks to the generous support of our donors and benefactors,” said Petra Farrell, the dCEC’s Culture of Life program manager. “It is especially gratifying to see so many professors and staff take part year after year. Their witness helps our students see the steadfast commitment of Notre Dame to proclaim the dignity of all human life, at all levels of the university community.”

Following the March For Life, the dCEC will again co-sponsor a reception with the Notre Dame Alumni Association that will gather more than 500 alumni, faculty, staff, families, and students to celebrate the impact of Notre Dame's public witness on behalf of life.

The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture is the locus of pro-life witness and formation at the University of Notre Dame. In addition to sponsoring the university's annual participation in the March for Life, the dCEC administers the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal, the nation's preeminent award for heroes of the pro-life movement. The dCEC also offers the annual Notre Dame Vita Institute, an intensive intellectual formation program for current and emerging leaders in the pro-life movement. More than 300 alumni of the ND Vita Institute constitute the leadership of the most prominent pro-life organizations and programs around the globe.

For more information about the pro-life programs of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, visit ethicscenter.nd.edu/prolife.