New fund aims to optimize pro-life movement's approach, use of resources

(OSV News) -- A new $30 million fund, begun with donations from just three men, is intended to represent the future of pro-life philanthropy.

The Pro-Life Venture Fund -- founded with donations from Catholic philanthropist Ray Ruddy, political activist Leonard Leo and Princeton University professor Robert P. George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence there -- comes under a venture called the Life Leadership Conference.

The executive director, David Bereit, is the founder of the pro-life group 40 Days for Life and former head of the American Life League.

"I've always felt there are more opportunities and obligations to expand the philanthropic base," Bereit told OSV News.

The announcement gave the venture's goals as "uniting fragmented efforts, focusing our movement's approach, optimizing how we deploy resources -- and trusting God to lead us."

It also said it "marks a new era of uncompromising resolve, coordinated action, and strategic innovation."

It is not intended to replace fund-raising by other organizations, Bereit said, but rather to fund new targeted pro-life activities at both national and state levels. One of his initial tasks is to find additional donors.

Leo, a lawyer and the co-chairman and former executive vice president of the Federalist Society, George and Ruddy did not respond to queries from OSV News. Bereit did not provide a breakdown of the amounts each man contributed.

At the Federalist Society, Leo was an adviser to President Donald Trump, during Trump's first term, on the nominations of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Years earlier, he was also involved in promoting the confirmations of Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.

The announcement credits Leo as "widely regarded as the chief behind-the-scenes architect of the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade" in 2022. Leo, a prolific fundraiser, was also responsible for raising $30 million to rename the law school at George Mason University after the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

In 2001, Ruddy, a retired businessman, along with his wife, founded the Gerard Health Foundation, which also offers grants to pro-life ventures. St. Gerard Majella is the patron saint of pregnant women.

Past recipients of foundation grants include Richard Doerflinger, then associate director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, activist Lila Rose, who has focused her activities on Planned Parenthood, and Kay Coles James, founder of both the Gloucester Institute and Black Americans for Life.

In 2022, George and professor John Finnis of Oxford University filed an amicus curiae brief, as the Supreme Court was considering the reversal of Roe v. Wade, which argued, as he said in a 2024 speech, that the court "should not only reverse Roe but recognize unborn children as persons who, as such, are entitled to the equal protection of the laws."

"Ideally, we'll land on two or three major projects to commence," Bereit told OSV News, with an emphasis on "greater collective impact." This includes recognizing "the youth and younger generation being targeted by the abortion industry," and recruiting online influencers.

Some ideas of new directions for the pro-life movement were provided in a Feb. 27 Americans United for Life webcast by former U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.

"The battle doesn't end," he said. "It just goes to hand-to-hand combat."

Brownback, a former ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, suggested that the movement join with a worldwide effort to renew Western civilization with Judeo-Christian values and an effort to make it easier for women to bear children.

"Most of the developed world is in a demographic winter right now," he said. "We need more kids." This effort should include reminding women that motherhood "is a noble calling."

Brownback also suggested that the pro-life movement align with groups opposing the death penalty with an emphasis on human dignity. "You receive that dignity from the very first inception of it."

And that emphasis on dignity should include preventing abortions of Down syndrome babies, he said. "God calls us not to judge anybody. He knows their hearts. We really need to … talk about the nobility of being a person, no matter who you are."

Another locally based goal, Brownback said, should be "to reduce abortions in the African American community by 50% over 10 years." The message should be "we are here to remove this blight on your community."

The pro-life movement has seen recent setbacks in state elections. In the 2024 elections, voters in seven of 10 states with ballot referendums on abortion voted to codify abortion as a right in their state constitution. "We've had 50 years of a pro-abortion culture. And you just don't overturn that overnight," Brownback said.