Thomas Glessner is an American lawyer and the president of the

National Institute of Family and Life Advocates The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) is an American 501(c)(3) charitable organization that is a member of the National Pro-Life Religious Council.

(NIFLA), a

public interest law Public interest law refers to legal practices undertaken to help poor, marginalized, or under-represented people, or to effect change in social policies in the public interest, on 'not for profit' terms ( ''pro bono publico''), often in the fields ...

firm founded in 1993. Glessner served as the executive director of the Christian Action Council (now

Care Net Care Net is an evangelical Christian network of crisis pregnancy centers operating primarily in the United States. As an anti-abortion organization, its centers seek to persuade women not to have abortions. Headquartered in Northern Virginia, it i ...

) from 1987 to 1992, establishing legal guidelines and programs for training board members and directors of pregnancy resource centers (PRCs) throughout the nation. In the 1990s, under his leadership, the Christian Action Council called for a boycott of a number of companies that supported

Planned Parenthood The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA), or simply Planned Parenthood, is a nonprofit organization that provides reproductive health care in the United States and globally. It is a tax-exempt corporation under Internal Reve ...

, a provider of

abortion Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...

services. As the CEO of NIFLA, Glessner also developed and implemented legal guidelines for PRCs, enabling them to convert their operations into licensed

medical clinic Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practic ...

s and provide services such as

ultrasound Ultrasound is sound waves with frequency, frequencies higher than the upper audible limit of human hearing range, hearing. Ultrasound is not different from "normal" (audible) sound in its physical properties, except that humans cannot hea ...

. Glessner has been listed in '' Who's Who in American Law'' and is the author of ''Achieving an Abortion Free America'' (Multnomah publishing, 1990),''Destiney's Team: A Story About Love, Choices and Eternity''(Anomalos Publishing, 2007), and a fiction novel, ''The Emerging Brave New World'' (Anomalos Publishing, 2008). Thomas Glessner graduated from the

University of Washington School of Law The University of Washington School of Law is the law school of the University of Washington, located on the northwest corner of the main campus in Seattle, Washington. The 2023 '' U.S. News & World Report'' law school rankings place Washingt ...

in Seattle in 1977, and practiced law in the

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

area for ten years. As a practicing attorney, he represented

pro-life Anti-abortion movements, also self-styled as pro-life or abolitionist movements, are involved in the abortion debate advocating against the practice of abortion and its legality. Many anti-abortion movements began as countermovements in respons ...

organizations and PRCs. He founded and led four pregnancy resource centers in Seattle from 1981 to 1987. Glessner is a member of the

bar association A bar association is a professional association of lawyers as generally organized in countries following the Anglo-American types of jurisprudence. The word bar is derived from the old English/European custom of using a physical railing to separ ...

s for the United States Supreme Court, the State of Virginia and the State of Washington. In addition, he has filed several "friend of the court"

brief Brief, briefs, or briefing may refer to: Documents * A letter * A briefing note * Papal brief, a papal letter less formal than a bull, sealed with the pope's signet ring or stamped with the device borne on this ring * Design brief, a type of educ ...

s in significant cases for the pro-life movement in the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

. He also sits on the Board of Directors for the National Religious Pro-life Coalition.

References

External links

Official bio
American non-fiction writers Living people University of Washington School of Law alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Crisis pregnancy centers {{abortion-stub