Mrs. Williams was Instrumental in the Founding of National Right to Life and the Pro-Life Movement

WASHINGTON — The Honorable Geline B. Williams, former mayor of Richmond, Virginia, and the former chairman of the National Right to Life Board of Directors, passed away on Sunday, January 12, at the age of 100. 

“National Right to Life mourns the loss of a beloved pro-life leader,” stated Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “The impact Geline had on the founding of the pro-life movement and the work to protect women and their unborn babies cannot be overstated.” 

Early on, Geline and her husband Alex, who passed away in 1996, were part of a pro-life steering committee that successfully defeated attempts to weaken Virginia’s abortion law in 1966. Later, Geline and Alex worked to protect preborn babies by founding National Right to Life’s oldest affiliate, Virginia Society for Human Life (VSHL) in 1967. They brought together doctors, lawyers, homemakers, clergy, public officials, and others to help lead VSHL’s successful efforts.

Fr. Jim McHugh, head of the Family Life Bureau of the U.S. Catholic Conference, was actively involved in protecting innocent human lives and saw the need for an ecumenical, national pro-life organization to coordinate the flow of information strategy between emerging state-based pro-life organizations. VSHL’s success in 1966 led him to approach their board in the spring of 1968 with a request that they help bring the National Right to Life Committee into being.

Geline’s early devotion to National Right to Life’s success helped guide the organization before Roe v. Wade and immediately after. For over three decades, Geline served as chairman of the board for National Right to Life. 

“National Right to Life will be forever indebted to Geline,” said Tobias. “Her guidance in the early years of the pro-life movement and her leadership on the NRLC Board of Directors set the foundation for the movement today.”

Founded in 1968, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of 50 state right-to-life affiliates, is the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization. NRLC works through legislation and education to protect innocent human life from abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide, and euthanasia.