Watch this panel of esteemed experts regarding prenatal diagnoses and their impact on the lives of persons with Down syndrome. The panel took place on March 19th, which is the Feast of Saint Joseph, the patron saint of families.
Bridget Brown is a disability/pro-life advocate, national speaker and writer, and young woman with Down syndrome. She serves on NCPD’s Committee on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, advocating for the inclusion and meaningful participation of persons with disabilities in parish life. Bridget has met Pope Francis and has written him a letter expressing her concerns regarding disability-selective abortion. Bridget has her own organization, Butterflies for Change, and is also the 2nd Vice President of the National Association for Down Syndrome’s board, where she helps train self-advocates to become leaders.
Dr. Mary O’Callaghan, Ph.D. is a developmental psychologist based at the University of Notre Dame. She is currently a visiting fellow in the Fiat Program in Faith and Mental Health at the McGrath Institute for Church Life. Since 2015, she has worked as a Public Policy Fellow at the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, focusing primarily on the issue of disability-selective abortion, and has been involved in state legislative efforts to protect infants with disabilities. She also teaches as an adjunct professor of statistics in the Mendoza College of Business at Notre Dame. Mary serves on the governing board and as Chair of the Ethics and Public Policy Committee for the National Catholic Partnership on Disability. She and her husband have five children, including their youngest son, Tommy, who has a dual diagnosis of Down syndrome and autism.
Tracy Winsor is the co-founder of Be Not Afraid (BNA), a case management support service for parents carrying to term following a prenatal diagnosis. BNA has welcomed over 300 infants since its founding fourteen years ago. Tracy has presented and written extensively on the topic of prenatal diagnosis, including presentations for the U.S. Bishops, the National Catholic Partnership on Disability, the International Association of Catholic Nurses, and the Catholic Social Workers National Association. She also authored a chapter in the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) text, Catholic Health Care Ethics: A Manual for Practitioners, Third Edition.Tracy is married and has eight children and five grandchildren. Her own experiences of pregnancy loss, acute neonatal intensive care, and medical disability inform her insight into the topic of prenatal diagnosis.
Facilitator
JD Flynn a canon lawyer, and the co-founder of The Pillar, a journalism project focused on the Catholic Church. Before that he was chancellor of the Archdiocese of Denver, special assistant to Bishop James Conley in the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, and editor-in-chief of Catholic News Agency. JD has been an instructor of canon law at St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, California, and St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver, Colorado. He has served as a consultor to the USCCB and as canonical advisor to projects for the Apostolic See. JD has published writing in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and various Catholic publications. He has a licentiate in canon law from the Catholic University of America and a master's in theology from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. JD has also published extensively on the rights of people with disabilities, and is a board member of the FIRE Foundation of Denver, which facilitates the enrollment of children with disabilities in Catholic schools.