Biography

Mothers for Natural Law was founded in June 1996 for the broad purpose of providing practical action steps for mothers to safeguard the health and well-being of their children in respect to the environment, crime, education, health, and the economy. Its founder, Laura Ticciati, a Fairfield, Iowa, woman, was an activist with the Natural Law Party that ran national presidential campaigns in 1992, 1996, and 2000 as a third party alternative to the Democrat and Republican parties. She and a small group of women decided to organize mothers around issues raised in the 1992 and 1996 Natural Law Party campaigns.

Basing Mothers for Natural Law in Fairfield, Iowa, she dramatically narrowed its focus in July 1996 to an educational and lobbying campaign against genetically engineered foods. Its agenda included rigorous pre-market safety evaluations, mandatory labeling, and a moratorium on genetically engineered food production. By 1997, Mothers for Natural Law became the nationally recognized clearinghouse for information on the issue of genetically engineered foods. It identified for consumers the sources of non-genetically engineered foods and joined a coalition to keep genetically modified organisms (GMOs) out of organic food. Mothers for Natural Law joined other groups in creating a non-GMO certification procedure and label. In 1998 it circulated a petition signed by nearly 500,000 for mandatory labeling of foods containing GMOs. In 1999 it conjoined scientists, physicians, food industry leaders, farmers, consumers and other public policy experts for a major press conference in Washington, D.C., on GMOs.

Found in 1 Collection or Record: