Olivia Gans Turner
President, Virginia Society for Human Life
Speech: “Roe v. Wade Has Failed: Unraveling the Damage”
Olivia Gans Turner directs American Victims of Abortion (AVA), an
outreach project of the National Right to Life Committee. She helped
organize one of the nation’s first peer-to-peer post-abortion support groups
in the New York City area after almost two years of suffering through an
acute emotional reaction to her own abortion experience as an unwed
college student. She has spoken widely on post-abortion syndrome and
other abortion-related issues in the United States and in Europe.
Olivia travels to many college campuses throughout the year to meet with
the students, and, as a frequent witness before legislative bodies, she
provides testimony on informed consent laws and parental notification laws
as well as abortion complications. As AVA director she has traveled to over
seventeen countries. Between 1994 and 2000, Mrs. Turner was a non-
governmental organization delegate to numerous United Nations
conferences. Those include the 1994 World Population and Development
Conference held in Egypt; the 1995 United Nations Conference on Women
held in Beijing, China; and the 2000 World Summit on Children held in New
York City.
Olivia has appeared on such nationally syndicated programs as Nightline,
Good Morning America, and Hannity & Colmes, and on C-SPAN, CNN, and
NPR news programs. In 2015 she appeared as the host of a new show
airing on EWTN, “When They Say, You Say”, based on the popular
National Right to Life Convention workshop.
In addition to her duties at National Right to Life, Olivia currently serves as
the President of the Virginia Society for Human Life located in Richmond
Virginia. VSHL is the first organized state pro-life group in the country,
founded in 1967 and the state affiliate of NRLC. She is a familiar face at
the General Assembly as VSHL’s main lobbyist since 2007 and brings all
her experience to the pro-life debate in Virginia.
Future Medical Professionals for Life at UVA 