BDF is a pro-life public-interest legal and educational organization that develops effective strategies for model legislation, litigation and public education on bioethics issues including abortion, human cloning and embryo research, end of life matters and healthcare rights of conscience.

Bioethics Defense Fund creates winning arguments for life based on natural law to benefit lawmakers, courts, students and citizens across the United States and abroad.

Bioethics Defense Fund advocates for a culture of life by understanding and applying the relevant legal, scientific and medical arguments in light of a philosophical anthropology grounded in the natural law and the compatibility of faith and reason.

BDF attorneys Nikolas T. Nikas and Dorinda C. Bordlee are known for their expertise in translating the profound truths of morality, law, and medicine into easy-to-understand legal and policy arguments that can be used by:

1. Legislators, judges, lawyers, and law students;
2. Physicians, medical students and other healthcare professionals;
3. Journalists and new media; and
4. Clergy, seminarians and all men and women of good will.

BDF’s expertise is in the following areas:

1. Abortion & pro-life feminism;
2. Biotech threats to human dignity including human cloning, destructive human embryo research, human egg harvesting, in vitro fertilization practices, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs, and more;
3. Euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and end-of-life decision making; and
4. Rights of conscience for healthcare professionals, and protecting individual religious liberty from coercive government mandates.

Litigation: BDF files lawsuits, provides strategic legal consultation to other attorneys, files amicus briefs in key federal and state court cases, prepares lawyers for oral arguments in appellate courts (including the U.S. Supreme Court), and initiates legal research to be incorporated in future prolife legal efforts.

Legislation: BDF drafts cutting-edge model laws to be used in various state legislatures; testifies as legal experts before state legislative committees, drafts prolife policy guides to educate legislators, media and the general public; provide ongoing consultation regarding pending legislation; conduct legislator educational seminars.

Education: BDF creates and delivers dynamic lectures and debates at law schools, medical schools, undergraduate colleges, universities and seminaries; and are frequent speakers at professional legal, medical and civic conferences.

Media: BDF attorneys draft timely opinion pieces, prepare compelling articles, offer insightful interviews for television and radio, and provide critical background information for national syndicated columnists and journalists.