An audience that interrupted the speakers with applause no fewer than eight times packed St. Agnes Church Sunday afternoon to hear a conversation focusing on the Dobbs Decision by national leading attorneys on the matter. Professor Robert George of Princeton University and Harold Cassidy of Ocean Township, the certified civil trial attorney in practice for 47 years known for litigation in numerous precedent-setting cases.
Introduced by the pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help-St. Agnes Parish, the Rev. Jarlath Quinn, the crowd came not only from this parish but from throughout New Jersey to hear the experts in the church as well as the estimated 770,000 streamed live throughout the United States.
In introducing Professor George, Attorney Cassidy, who is originally from Atlantic Highlands, traced George’s decades of expertise, including with Mother Theresa when he drafted statements when she presented before the Supreme Court urging the court to consider when life begins in the Roe vs. Wade case of abortion. In that statement written by George, Mother Theresa, an Albanian by birth living in Calcutta, India, quoted from the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal…”
George told the audience of his upbringing when he and his four brothers were taught about the importance of every life by their parents, and he saw his own mother volunteering for mothers in need.
George said it has been 49 years, five months and two days between Roe V. Wade and the first step in changing abortion statues in the United States and concluded at the end of the afternoon that even if it takes that long from then on to accomplish the change which would make abortion illegal throughout the country it can be accomplished if all work towards that goal.
In a 90-minute session with Cassidy primarily asking questions and citing areas where George has been recognized as an expert, George makes it clear his opinion that the Rove v Wade decision that legalized Abortion was based on fraud, citing proof of lies in the court procedures and the need to restore integrity in the court processing. He cited the case as based on assumptions with no findings of fact.
George also cites the 14th amendment as a basis for condemning abortion, noting the amendment prohibits any state from making or enforcing any law that abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens, or decreases any person of life, liberty or property.
Cassidy cited the national scandal where women were not told of all of the ramifications of abortion, were forced into having them or suffered serious effects after unwanted abortions.
Both attorneys made it clear that lawyers, scientists, and the medical world and so many more really do “know when live begins “and it is at the moment that the two individual cells of a man and women mesh and become one single living new cell that had never been alive before.
While last-minute audio problems delayed the start of the program for a few minutes, and a video scheduled to be part of the presentation had to be discontinued, a substitution was made to enable the discussions to be heard throughout the church.
At the end of the discussion, and after a thunderous applause and a standing ovation for both speakers, organist Courtney Grogan ended the program with two hymns, and the group retired to the church’s lower level for refreshments and more personal meetings with both Cassidy and George.
