Contact: Don Feder, Communications Director, 508-405-1337, dfeder@rcn.com; Judy Hodge, 815-964-5819, media@worldcongress.org; both with World Congress of Families 

ROCKFORD, Ill., Oct. 28, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ -- World Congress of Families congratulated Americans United for Life on its 40th Anniversary.  AUL is a World Congress of Families Partner.

World Congress of Families Managing Director Larry Jacobs noted, "Since its founding in 1971, Americans United for Life (AUL) has fought long, hard and well for the unborn in the legal, legislative and educational arenas."

Jacobs observed: "AUL attorneys work tirelessly across the country to help legislators write common-sense laws that protect human life at every stage, and to defend those laws against court challenges."

Currently, AUL is working with pro-life lawmakers to draft and pass legislation that would: mandate standards for abortion clinics to protect the health and safety of women and correct often substandard conditions; protect the rights of conscience of all healthcare professionals; protect parental rights, ensuring parents and guardians are involved in medical decisions of children; protect unborn victims from criminal violence, including homicide; ban all forms of human cloning; promote adult stem cell, cord blood and other forms of life-affirming stem cell research; prevent euthanasia and assisted suicide; and inform women of the health risks of abortion including the link between abortion and breast cancer.

On November 2, 2011, Americans United for Life will hold its 40th Anniversary Gala at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. -- reception at 6:30 pm, dinner at 7:30.

Speakers include AUL President and CEO Charmaine Yoest, keynote speaker Carly Fiorina -- former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and 2010 U.S. Senate candidate in California -- and Brent Bozell, Founder and President of the Media Research Center.  For more information and to register, go to prolife.aul.org/gala/.

"We are delighted by the opportunity to acknowledge the crucial work of Americans United for Life, for the unborn and for all Americans. And we are honored to have AUL as a World Congress of Families (WCF) Partner, along with 34 other pro-life and pro-family organizations," Jacobs declared.

Jacobs continued, "We have a special pride and appreciation of the excellent leadership at Americans United for Life, including William (Bill) Saunders, AUL's Senior Vice-President of Legal Affairs, who is a member of the WCF Management Committee and Charmaine Yoest, AUL President, who was one of our own researchers and writers as a 2003 Kohler Fellow of The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society (parent organization of World Congress of Families).

For information on Americans United For Life go to www.aul.org.  For information on World Congress of Families go to www.worldcongress.org.   To schedule an interview with Larry Jacobs, contact Communications Director Don Feder at 508-405-1337, dfeder@rcn.com or Judy Hodge 815-964-5819, media@worldcongress.org.

The World Congress of Families (WCF) is an international network of pro-family organizations, scholars, leaders and inter-faith people of goodwill from more than 80  countries that seek to restore the natural family as the fundamental social unit and the 'seedbed' of civil society (as found in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948).  The WCF was founded in 1997 by Allan Carlson and is a project of The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society in Rockford, Illinois.  To date, there have been five World Congresses of Families -- Prague (1997), Geneva (1999), Mexico City (2004), Warsaw, Poland (2007) and Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2009). 

World Congress of Families VI will be held in Madrid, Spain in May 25-27, 2012.