Dr. Francis J. Beckwith, who is a professor of philosophy and church-studies at Baylor University and author of the book "Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice," will present the address "What the Abortion Debate is Really About" on Monday, March 2, at 4 p.m. in the Maas Center auditorium.

The public is invited.  Admission is free.

Beckwith teaches in the departments of philosophy and political science as well as the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, where he served as associate director from July 2003 until January 2007. He is also a Fellow and Faculty Affiliate in Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR).  During 2008-09 he is serving on the faculty of the University of Notre Dame as the Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow in Notre Dame's Center for Ethics and Culture.

Including "Defending Life," published by Cambridge University Press in 2007, he has authored 10 books, as well as numerous articles and book chapters, and is frequently quoted in the national media. He is the former president of the Evangelical Theological Society, a position he gave up after he converted to Catholicism, a process detailed in his book "Return to Rome: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic."

Beckwith's lecture is being sponsored by the college's department of political science; office of campus ministries; and chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, the political science honors society.

The Maas Center is located at 264 Columbia Ave., on Columbia Avenue at 11th Street.