NRLC's Director of Research Obtains Georgetown Ph.D.

Randall K. O'Bannon, the National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund's director of research since 1994, obtained his doctoral degree in philosophy May 22, 1998, at Georgetown University. His dissertation, "As God Commands: Reexamining Moral Theory to Find Euthyphro's Answer," sought to answer the classical philosophical question of how one might build a moral theory based on the will of God without that will being arbitrary.

Dr. O'Bannon moved to the Washington area from Atlanta in 1988 to pursue doctoral studies at Georgetown after completing the coursework on his master's degree in philosophy at Georgia State University (he obtained his Master's degree from Georgia State in 1989). He first came to work at NRLC in the summer of 1989 as a researcher for the State Legislation Department and continued to work part time there and with the Medical Ethics Department for the next several years while completing his coursework at Georgetown. During that time, he researched and prepared factsheets and other reference material on issues such as rape pregnancy, public opinion polls, assisted suicide, and health care rationing in foreign countries.

In 1994, Dr. O'Bannon was asked to take over the Education Department. During his tenure, the Trust Fund has published and revised a number of educational materials, including a full- scale revision of the pamphlet (now a booklet) Abortion: Some Medical Facts, and new factsheets on "The Basics," abortion statistics, and the chemical abortifacient, RU 486.

Dr. O'Bannon has closely followed and researched the two-drug abortion technique RU 486 through the U.S. approval process. He has researched and written numerous articles for NRL News and helped to coordinate a consumer product boycott against the American subsidiaries of the German and French companies responsible for the deadly drug's American introduction.

Working on his dissertation during a time of such critical events and activities was not easy, Dr. O'Bannon admitted, but he credited his co-workers at NRLC with helping him finally get through.

"The staff here at NRLC, and especially the Education Department, picked up a lot of slack for me when I had to be out doing writing and research on the dissertation. I couldn't have done it without the help of Clare Richter, Marie Hagan, or Joe Landrum," he said. "I especially want to thank Dr. Wanda Franz, Dr. David N. O'Steen, and Darla St. Martin for their unstinting encouragement and understanding as I tried to make time for both the dissertation and my work responsibilities. Their support was crucial to the project's completion."

Dr. O'Bannon said his immediate plan is to try to catch up on the many projects and ideas. "I'd like to get out a series of factsheets on Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger that have been in the works for some time," O'Bannon said, "and I'd like to develop some new factsheets on abortion polling and other aspects of RU 486."

In the future, Dr. O'Bannon said he might like to do some more scholarly writing in his academic area of ethics. "There is a short supply of pro-life ethicists writing in the field of bioethics," Dr. O'Bannon said. "I may want to see what contribution I could make to some of these critical debates."

Dr. O'Bannon and his wife, Sandy, live in Manassas, Virginia, with their three girls, Katy, Kelly, and Kerry Hope.