Past Press Releases and Statements

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Chris Labadie
NDresponse@gmail.com
www.NDresponse.com

NOTRE DAME STUDENT COALITION ANNOUNCES FIRST OFFICIAL PUBLIC DEMONSTRATION

Harold Cassidy Biography Follows

NOTRE DAME, IN, 31 March 2009 – The University of Notre Dame’s student-formed coalition, Notre Dame Response, has announced plans for its first official demonstration on campus: a 2:00 PM prayer rally on Sunday, April 5, 2009 to be held in front of the University’s Main Building following the noon Palm Sunday Mass at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. The coalition was formed in response to the University’s announcement, earlier this month, of its selection of President Barack Obama as its 2009 Commencement speaker. The University also plans to award the President an honorary doctor of laws degree during the Commencement exercises.

The main speaker at the rally will be nationally recognized attorney, Harold Cassidy, who has litigated pro-life cases that have advanced the true rights and interests of pregnant mothers. He will address the human rights violations of abortion, and how abortion violates the rights, interests and health of women. Central to that discussion will be remarks concerning the role of Catholic institutions in the abortion debate, and the role and influence in advancing the human rights violation of abortion in the speech Governor Mario Cuomo delivered at Notre Dame in 1984.

Notre Dame Response hopes that through this prayerful and public demonstration on Palm Sunday, the University community will be respectfully reminded to celebrate its Catholic character and to defend those non-negotiable principles for which Notre Dame stands, including an overarching recognition of the inherent dignity and value of all human life. This event is also a response to University President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., who last week expressed the hope that the invitation of President Obama will present an authentic “basis for an engagement with him” on those key issues that “we care so much about.”

Notre Dame Response was formed as an ad hoc, coalition consisting of various student groups at the University. Its initial statement describes the group as being committed to “acts of witness that will be characterized by respect, prayerfulness, outspoken fidelity to the Church, and true concern for the good of our University.”

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Harold Cassidy bio:

Mr. Cassidy has engaged in a broad variety of litigation, both trial and appellate, in his 30 years in the private practice of law. Mr. Cassidy was designated by the New Jersey Supreme Court as a Certified Civil Trial Attorney, and is a past member of the Board of Governors of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, New Jersey. He was selected by the New Jersey Governor to serve as a member of the New Jersey Bioethics Commission, and was a Delegate to the American Bar Association convention on Life, Death and the Law. He has been honored for his achievements in the law by being selected Person of the Week by the ABC World News with Peter Jennings, and has recently been selected as one of New Jersey’s top attorneys in the field of general litigation by New Jersey Monthly and New Jersey Superlawyers magazines, being one of approximately 60 attorneys (out of 55,000) selected in that category.

Mr. Cassidy recently established important precedent in an abortion malpractice case which established for the first time, anywhere in the nation, that a first trimester abortion involved the death of a family member, and the question of whether such an abortion terminated the life of a living human being was a question of fact for a jury to determine.

Mr. Cassidy distinguished himself as a defender of the rights of pregnant mothers in a variety of matters over a period of more than twenty years. He secured the return of mothers’ children in situations where the mother’s rights were violated and her surrender of her constitutional rights were uninformed or involuntary. He was Chief Counsel in the famous Baby M case, the first case in the United States to strike down surrogate parenting contracts as illegal, unenforceable, against public policy and exploitive of women.

Most recently Mr. Cassidy has devoted his practice to protecting the rights of pregnant mothers, particularly in matters involving abortions where abortion providers have violated the rights of the mothers and subjected them to procedures without obtaining informed and voluntary consent. He has established important precedent in this area of practice.

He is now widely consulted by various state legislatures for his legal expertise in the area of mother’s rights and abortion law and he has assisted in drafting and defending legislation in this area.