Our People

Prof. O. Carter Snead

BA JD

O. Carter Snead is Professor of Law, Director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, and Concurrent Professor of Political Science, at the University of Notre Dame in the United States. Professor Snead served as General Counsel to President George W. Bush’s Council on Bioethics (chaired by Leon R. Kass). He led the U.S. delegation to UNESCO and was its chief negotiator for bioethics-related treaties and conventions from 2003-2005. He also served as the U.S. Permanent Observer to the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee on Bioethics from 2006-08. From 2008-12, the Director General of UNESCO appointed him to a four-year term on the International Bioethics Committee. He is a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life and a Fellow of the Hastings Center.

Sincerest Thanks for Your Support

Staff are grateful to all those who sustained the Centre in the past by their prayers and the generous financial support from trusts, organisations, communities and especially from individual donors, including the core funding that came through the Day for Life fund and so from the generosity of many thousands of parishioners. We would finally like to acknowledge the support the Centre has received from the Catholic community in Ireland, especially during the pandemic when second collections were not possible.

We would like to emphasise that, though the Centre is now closed, these donations have not been wasted but have helped educate and support generations of conscientious healthcare professionals, clerics, and lay people over almost 50 years. This support has also helped prevent repeated attempts to legalise euthanasia or assisted suicide in Britain and Ireland from 1993 till the end of the Centre’s work on 31 July 2025.