NCBC and the NCPD Continue Working to Protect the Disabled

ACTION ITEM: California pushing Physician-Assisted Suicide through in state Senate TODAY. California residents, please contact CA Governor to stop this: http://goo.gl/5Ln0Cg

The NCBC Joins the Official Pennsylvania Coalition to Stop Doctor-Prescribed Suicide

We, The National Catholic Bioethics Center, have joined the Pennsylvania Coalition to Stop Doctor-Prescribed Suicide. The Coalition, which is an alliance of disability rights, healthcare, civil rights, faith-based, and patient advocacy organizations, is dedicated to preventing legalization of Doctor-Prescribed Suicide in the state of Pennsylvania. This legislative year alone, 16 states and the District of Columbia have introduced proposals to legalize Doctor-Prescribed Suicide. Fortunately, these initiatives have failed in six states so far this legislative year. The misinformation, however, continues to flow into the media about why persons “need” this option. The data support that the reasons for requesting Doctor-Prescribed Suicide have more to do with fear of loss of autonomy, enjoyment in activities of living, and dignity (which a person should never be made to feel, no matter how dependent on others) than the false representations presented by advocates of Doctor-Prescribed Suicide. In fact...


Read the rest of the NCBC story, HERE.

The NCBC Supports: The Little Sisters of the Poor and Others Challenging Violations of their Conscience Rights

The National Catholic Bioethics Center has again been a signatory to several amicus briefs of late in support of sound and life giving health care policies: 

 The NCBC supports the state of Iowa and the Ruling of its Board of Medicine to protect women from abortions via telemedicine. Planned Parenthood has challenge these safety requirements and the case is before the Iowa Supreme Court. Dr. Marie Hilliard, is Director of Bioethics and Public Policy for The National Catholic Bioethics Center, where she files briefs such as the brief for Iowa (NCBC named on page 4) and she helps the Center fulfill its critical role in defending the human person and supporting the common good. 
(For more details on this issue, see: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/health/2014/09/16/planned-parenthood-of-the-heartland-iowa-supreme-court-telemedicine-abortion/15726317/.)


The NCBC has also firmly supported the Little Sisters of the Poor in their Fight for Religious Freedom, which is being Violated by the HHS Contraceptive Mandate. On Monday December 8th, 2014, the Little Sisters of the Poor will have their day in court before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through its Contraceptive Mandate, is requiring virtually all employers, regardless of their opposition on grounds of conscience, to provide to their employees through their benefit plans coverage of contraceptive drugs and devices, including abortifacients, as well as surgical sterilizations. The Little Sisters present perhaps the best and clearest example of a religious organization that is faced with an existential threat by the HHS Contraceptive Mandate 

(see: http://blog.archny.org/steppingout/?p=3076 ).

A victory by the Little Sisters will send a clear message to the U.S. Supreme Court, and will increase the chances that other religious non-profits will be protected from the ruinous fines that would be imposed under the Mandate. A defeat could subject the Little Sisters to as much as $50 million in fines for following their conscience -- that would force them out of their significant ministry to the elderly and infirm, and also send an ominous message about the future of religious freedom in America. Please continue to hold the Little Sisters and their attorneys in your prayers.

The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) continues to support organizations and their rights to religious freedom which are continuously violated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Contraceptive Mandate. The NCBC joins other organizations committed to the protection of Religious Freedom in signing onto the following amicus briefs, in support of those employers who are legally challenging the violations of their conscience rights: 

• Dordt College and Cornerstone University (UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT, DORDT COLLEGE and CORNERSTONE UNIVERSITY, v. SYLVIA M. BURWELL)
  
• The Archdiocese of St. Louis (UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT, ARCHDIOCESE OF ST. LOUIS and CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF ST. LOUIS. v. SYLVIA M. BURWELL)
  
• East Texas Baptist University and Westminster Theological Seminary (UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT EAST TEXAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY; HOUSTON BAPTIST UNIVERSITY, WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, v. SYLVIA MATTHEWS BURWELL).

These briefs represent a total of seventeen amicus briefs filed by the NCBC in support of religious freedom being violated by the HHS Contraceptive Mandate.

ACTION ITEM -- Join the NCBC in the Fight for Informed Consent and Protection of Organ Donors

Right on the heels of the Official Commentary given by NCBC Director of Public Policy, Dr. Marie Hilliard, concerning new living-donor transplant policies that: "Violate informed consent, donor and recipient safety, as well as human physical integrity." 

Dr. Marie Hilliard

Dr. Hilliard and the NCBC ask that you help us take action on this issue:

The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), the federally authorized body to develop public policy on safe organ donation and transplantation, has issued a request for public comment on their proposal entitled Policy to Implement the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network's Oversight of Vascularized Composite Allografts (VCAs).

As we know, the Catholic Church supports the voluntary charity of organ donation, as a gift of life. However, this proposal would allow living donors to donate hands and feet and facial tissue. The public comment of The National Catholic Bioethics Center is attached. The protections for the safety of the donor and recipient, true informed consent, and bodily integrity will be violated by this policy. Please have your voice heard by December 5, 2014, by e-mailing OPTN at publiccomment@unos.org, asking that this proposal be rejected, citing that you:

• “Urge an entire rejection of this policy and a redrafting to address the blatant violations of informed consent, donor and recipient safety, and human physical integrity, as well as the prevention of bodily mutilation to the living donor. No living donor should be included in VCA donation policies.”

Thank you for helping to inform the regulators of public policy on the importance of such protections for the human person.

-- And thank you to Dr. Hilliard for her hard work on these issues!

Dr. Haas Reporting from Rome -- Day 2 of the Colloquium

The President of The National Catholic Bioethics Center, Dr. John Haas, is in Rome this week to attend an international colloquium on the Complementarity of Man and Woman organized by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and co-sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Family, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.

Dr. Haas will also be attending the annual assembly of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Care for Healthcare Workers, for which he serves as a Consultor. 

Dr. Haas is providing daily reports of the proceedings of both those meetings for the benefit of those who are visitors to our website and social media sites. We will provide regular updates to you here on the Blog this week!

Click here to read about day 1 of the Colloquium.

Click here to read about day 3 of the Colloquium.

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The second day of the conference began with intermittent heavy rain.  I would not have made it to the conference dry had it not been for the generosity of a couple from Benin who allowed me to share their umbrella.  Yvette and Cyrille Seke head a movement known as “Love Power” in English and “L’Ethique de l’Amour” in French.  They gave a presentation later in the afternoon.

The NCBC President with Yvette and Cyrille Seke (whose kindness kept Dr. Haas dry!)

The second day began very solemnly as the announcement was made that there had been an attack on a synagogue in Jerusalem during which three Americans and one Briton were killed.  Cardinal Jean-Luis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, who was presiding over the morning session, called for a moment of prayer.  Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, who had spoken the day before, offered a moving prayer for peace and Hebrew prayers for the departed.

Cardinal Tauran then proceeded to open the conference observing that we could not avoid engaging in an interreligious analysis of contemporary challenges to marriage since marriage is a natural institution which is found in all societies and the assault against it is taking place in many different countries and cultures.  We must be in a common struggle to uphold the family, and in those societies in which marriage is under the most profound assault, we, as believers, must be guaranteed the right to live in accord with our beliefs about marriage. 

Bishop Michael Nazir’ Ali was the first speaker.  He is the former Anglican Bishop of Rochester in England, and comes from a Pakistani Muslim family.  He began by addressing the decline of family life and of legal support for marriage which has become common in contemporary western societies.  He said there are particular complications in England since the Church of England is still the established church and so its canon law still has the force of public law.  So there are virtually two parallel legal systems in England dealing with these issues.  He said that in secularized society, and he counted England, there has been a rejection of the understanding of a “natural” or “normative” family even though historical studies have shown that a union between a man and a woman open to children has indeed constituted “normative” marriage.  Sociological studies show the same.  There are important values and practical goods that can be provided by the Church, even in a secularized society.  One benefit would be marriage preparation which is not provided by the state, as well as preparation in “fathering” and “mothering”.  There was some irony in the presence of a bishop from the Church of England which is experiencing severe tensions with its daughter Anglican churches in Africa that continue to adhere to scriptural norms of sexual morality. 

The Bishop’s presentation was followed by two “witnesses”; Mr. Manmohan Singh, speaking to the Sikh tradition, and Dr. Munehiro Niwano, a Catholic in Japan, who offered the example of the strength a Buddhist couple drew from one another after the catastrophic earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant disaster that hit Japan a couple years ago. 

Mr. Manmohan with Msgr. Steve Lopes,who works for the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and was a
principle organizer of the Humanum Colloquium

One of the most gripping speakers of the conference was an African American woman, Dr. Jacqueline Cooke-Rivers from Harvard, who introduced herself as a daughter of the African “diaspora” and as a follower of Jesus Christ.  She movingly spoke of one of the most precious things stolen from black slaves by their owners during the period of slavery; marriage.  Black slaves longed for it, and upon freedom many immediately married.  But she then went on to speak of how governmental policies eventually came to undermine the black family.  In 1965 a report of the Labor Department was issued by Daniel Patrick Moynihan entitled: The Negro Family: the Case for National Action. The Moynihan Report showed a 25% rate of out-of-wedlock births and attributed it largely to the absence of fathers in the home.  It stated: "The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States".  There were proposals that governments should enact policies that would protect the family.  The opposite occurred.  The report was criticized as being demeaning to the black family, particularly to women, by stating that a significant source of the problem was the absence of the father in the home.  That, indeed, was and continues to be a major problem.  Many welfare programs actually resulted in a decline in the presence of a father in the home and this has been devastating for the black community.  Now the out-of-wedlock birthrate in the black community is 70%.  However, even in this disarray, and even as African American women bear children out of wedlock, they still long for stable marriage.  Dr. Cook-Rivers was particularly indignant that the gay movement had wrapped itself in the cloak of the civil rights movement.  She insisted that there is no equivalence whatsoever between the agenda of the homosexual community and the civil rights movement.

At the beginning of the second half of the morning sessions Cardinal Müller announced that Wael Farouq, who had spoken the day before, had requested to address the assembly.  Prof. Farouq said he was chosen by the other Muslims at the conference to speak on their behalf.  He said he had been part of the group that took over the square in Cairo to speak out against the brutal dictatorship of the Muslim Brotherhood.  He said when the Catholics in the crowd wanted to say mass, he said he and his fellow Muslims formed a protected area, a “church”, with their own bodies for them.  He said he saw Christians as brothers and sisters.  Speaking on behalf of the Muslims present he said, “We strongly condemn without reserve the violence against the innocent and all places of worship.  Our religion has been kidnapped by a very small group of radicals.”  One could see the pain in his face as he had to address the atrocities committed by those who claimed to be members of his religion.

The next speaker was Prof. Abdelwahab Maalmi who had served as the Ambassador of Morocco to the Holy See and is a professor international relations at the law faculty of the University Hassan II. 

The topic he addressed dealt with the relationship between women and society in contemporary Muslim countries and how those relations are regulated by both Sharia law and law.  In his mind, the notion of complementarity raised more problems than it solved because the important theme in Islam is not complementarity but rather equality.  The speaker presented complementarity as being opposed to equality.  In my opinion the speaker fundamentally misunderstood the understanding of complementarity developed by the conference.  Perhaps I misunderstood the interpreters!  He nonetheless made some interesting points about contemporary Islam and the place of women.  He said Islam had made great progress.  Women can be lawyers, physicians, professors, writers, but the Muslim woman is still in a situation of inferiority in private life because of Sharia law which dictates family policies.  He did not mention it but there is considerable variety in Muslim countries in the way in which women are treated.

The Rev. Dr. Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention spoke next saying that the fundamental question of our day is whether we will think of man as a machine whose parts can be altered and changed or a creation of God with specific ends and purposes inscribed in his very being.  Marriage is imbedded in the created order; marriage and family were not crafted by any human state.  As an Evangelical he said he was concerned with protecting marriage not only to contribute to human flourishing and a sound social order but also with the goal and meaning of the universe since the mystery of the universe is in Christ which is manifested in marriage, in the indissoluble union between Christ the bridegroom and His bride the Church.  In my opinion, Dr. Moore did not give a lecture; he rather delivered a rousing sermon which elicited shouts of “Amen, brother” from the Pentecostals and other Protestants present.  It was probably a first for the Synod Hall!  He had some great quotes which I have to paraphrase since I did not record him.  The sexual revolution is not a liberation but a new form of slavery in which women continue to be used and exploited for man’s benefit.  Immorality is not just naughtiness but a sermon, a sermon preaching a different message.  He said, “We must resist the will to power which would treat children as manufactured products or nuisances to be destroyed”.  He said there are those who tell us that contemporary society will not hear us if we do not accept and speak in its terms.  He went on, “The churches that adopted those positions are now deader than Henry VIII”.  That brought resounding applause but I could not help but wonder what the Anglican bishops present thought!

Cardinal Müller thanked him for his presentation and observed, “If you are standing at the precipice, to step back is the best way to progress”, which elicited laughter and applause from the assembly.

The next speaker was a Taoist, Mrs. Tsui-ying Sheng of Fu Jen University.  She spoke of the symbol ying/yang which permeates their religion and reflects the complementarity found throughout all the created order: day, night; darkness, light; man, woman; husband, wife.  She spoke of the beauty of harmonious married life and how the ying/yang accommodates, for example, one partner growing weak with the other growing stronger.

The afternoon session was presided over by Archbishop Augustine DiNoia, a Dominican and Adjunct Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.  He pointed out that St. Thomas Aquinas, the great theologian of the Dominican Order, never used the word “complementarity” but he spoke to the reality of it.  The Archbishop expounded on St. Thomas’ teaching on the human person as being a single reality of body and soul.  The soul is created by God to be infused into a body created by Him to receive it.  The relationship between body and soul is complementary and one cannot exist without the other.  And the body which the soul will inform, will vivify, is ineluctably either male or female.  This makes complementarity an objective, incontrovertible reality in human existence.  And this complementarity is more than biological but permeates the full reality of what it is to be a human being.  Indeed, “sexuality extends from the tip of the toes to the top of the soul”.

The next speaker was the Rev. Dr. Richard Warren, a very popular author, preacher and pastor of one of America’s mega-churches, Saddleback Church in California with 25,000 members.  I have attended many conferences in the Vatican, and the papers are invariably quite scholarly and not infrequently boring.  It was a new experience to witness the Evangelical approach with great animation and moving oratory.

Not surprisingly, Pastor Warren said the first thing we must do to save marriage is “Affirm the authority of God’s Word”.  As Catholics we do the same but we also draw from sacred Tradition and the natural order.  He insisted, as would we, that “We build our lives on the unchanging truth of God’s Word, not on passing fads.  Truth is still truth no matter how many people deny it.”  He did address the natural order to a certain extent by pointing out that when couples make love, or even just show affection to one another, they secrete the hormone oxytocin which engenders feeling of happiness and satisfaction.  It is sometimes known as the “bonding hormone”.  He suggested activities which would lead to the secretion of oxytocin as one way to help preserve marriages!

In referring to the previous 20 presentations (!) of the conference, he said it was good to speak to the nature of marriage and the threats to it in contemporary society.  But he said, with great zest, that the REAL issue is, “What are we going to do about it?!” which generated loud applause.  I turned to Lord Windsor, a Catholic convert of the British royal family, who was sitting beside me and said, “A typically American approach”, at which he chuckled.  However, we both agreed that the good pastor raised a critically important point!  He went on to list very practical approaches that can be taken at the local congregational level to strengthen marriage.  One was forming small groups of married couples to share their experiences and to have couples with successful marriages mentor newly married young couples.

The program had presenters with more academic papers and “witnesses” who spoke to their own experiences of marriage.  The next speaker was President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, i.e., a Mormon leader.  He was older and a bit frail but he did what Pastor Warren had said should be done, he gave testimony to a happy marriage.  He simply told a love story of encountering his wife, falling in love, and raising a family.  He occasionally choked up a bit with emotion which made the presentation all the more moving.  His story was touched off by his telling us that, as he arrived for the conference, he had received news of the birth of their first great grandchild! The Mormons have been extraordinarily strong defenders of marriage and supporters of the larger movement in defense of marriage.

The final presentation of the day was provided by the handsome couple from Benin who had shared their umbrella with me that morning, Cyro and Cyra Seke.  They had a beautiful story of a love that overcame many obstacles.  He was a tribal prince from the north of the country, and she was from the south.  Apparently the north and south simply do not intermarry, and their marriage was fiercely opposed by both families, especially his.  His family tried to talk him into taking several wives but he had been educated in a Christian school and had converted.  He refused.  Despite the opposition of their families, they married.  In their culture a couple has children as soon as they marry.  They have gone 10 years without children which is seen by some as a punishment.  However, they took in a special needs child who had been rejected by his family so that they now have their own family.  They were engaging, taking turns telling their story – and entertaining, singing a couple love songs for us!  They truly provided a beautiful example of embracing true marriage despite great cultural opposition.

The day concluded with a panel of five experts.  One of them was Professor Robert George of Princeton University who has been particularly forceful in the defense of marriage.  He gave an impassioned appeal for rallying all the resources at our disposal on behalf of marriage.  He said the demand for gay marriage is not the cause of the current decline of marriage and family in our society but rather one of the effects of the devastation resulting from a culture of divorce and promiscuity.  He said to permit the attempted redefinition of marriage in the United State would lead to catastrophe.  All our attempts to work against divorce, promiscuity, out-of-wedlock births, co-habitation, increased drug use among the young will be in vain because true marriage, the basis of family life, will cease to exist in law.  The state should have no particular interest in regulating friendships and romantic relationships.  The social purpose of marriage is conjugal, to provide a mother and a father in a permanent bond for a child who is born from their union.  This social purpose is absolutely irreplaceable.

Professor Robert George

After the day’s program, on a walk along the walls of the Vatican City State on the way to the Vatican Museum, I spoke with a law professor. We spoke of Prof. George’s stern warning and of how urgent it was to continue the struggle for marriage. The law professor said that the loss of this struggle could be worse than the abortion one from a legal point of view. He said we can keep working against abortion and making it progressively less bad. However, it would be virtually impossible to undo the legal consequences that result from our failure in defense of marriage. How could one in the future contend with same-sex persons being “spouses” under law with all the legal and governmental benefits that accompany it? A remedy would be virtually inconceivable if the status of marriage was nationally awarded to same sex couples. So the day ended on a rather sobering note after some of the beautiful testimonies that had been given in the course of the day to married love.

***

Check the NCBC Blog this week, and keep your eyes on our Facebook or Twitter accounts for notices of new posts. You won't want to miss these glimpses into the daily life of the Church in service to the world!

The National Catholic Bioethics Center Comments on New HHS Proposed Rules

Yesterday The National Catholic Bioethics Center submitted official commentary to the government regarding the: "Proposed Rules on coverage of certain preventive services under the Affordable Care Act ('ACA'), known as the 'Contraceptive Mandate.'"


The statement, a full analysis of the new rules, is concomitant with the Center's initial impression of the rules and reiterates that they are, in fact, more "restrictive of religious freedom than provided for by the decision of the Supreme Court."


To read the full story and the official comment, click HERE

5 PM TODAY -- Connecticut Assisted Suicide Bill was Defeated Once Again

Thanks to the assistance and coordination of NCBC Ethicist and Director of Public Policy, Dr. Marie Hilliard, the testimony of Law Professor and friend of the NCBC, Steve Mikochik, and the tireless effort of the Connecticut Catholic Conference and the Family Institute of Connecticut, the once-again proposed Connecticut Assisted Suicide Bill was defeated this year. The Connecticut Public Health Committee did not be meet today and, therefore, the existing deadline for voting on the Assisted Suicide Bill was missed. The bill was dropped at exactly 5 P.M. today.

In a manner mirroring those NCBC efforts that helped defeat the bill last year, Dr. Hilliard worked with Steve Mikochick in her role as a board member of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability. Dr. Hilliard coordinated and assisted with the testimony that Mr. Mikochik presented in opposition to the bill.

Thank you for all of your hard work, Dr. Hilliard! Congratulations!

Dr. Marie Hilliard

Good news for a happy Friday.

NCBC Ethicist's Major Article Just Released: "Birth Control is Not Health Care"

Dr. Marie Hilliard, Ethicist and Director of Bioethics and Public Policy at the NCBC, has just had an article on contraception and the HHS Mandate published in Crisis Magazine online today.

Dr. Marie Hilliard

The article, entitled Birth Control is not Health Care, takes a thorough and incisive look at the HHS Mandate and at the prominent place of birth control as a pillar of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Dr. Hilliard looks at the enforcement of the contraceptive mandate which has, erroneously, been presented as a crucial element of preserving good health, and examines this in light of the current lawsuit being heard on behalf of the Little Sisters of the Poor. The initiative of the Sisters shows that the decision to oppose the HHS mandate: "Has much more to do with religious liberty," and the defense of that liberty, than any flawed arguments stating that opposition to the Mandate is merely a misguided opposition to good health and health care.


Please read Dr. Hilliard's excellent article, HERE.

Thank you, Dr. Hilliard!

TONIGHT -- NCBC Ethicists on the Airwaves

It has been confirmed that NCBC ethicists Dr. Marie Hilliard, Director of Public Policy, and Father Tadeuz Pacholczyk, Director of Education, will each be appearing LIVE in separate radio interviews this evening.

Dr. Hilliard will be speaking on contraception in the HHS mandate and its place in the the Affordable Care Act. Dr. Hilliard will be on the program What the World Needs Now with Kathleen McCarthy. The interview will be broadcast by the In His Sign Network at 5 P.M., Eastern, tonight.

After hearing Dr. Hilliard, you can tune in to Relevant Radio's program A Closer Look with Sheila Liaugminas to listen to Father Tad.

Father will be interviewed in a segment of the show entitled: Under the Microscope: A Closer Look at Medical Bioethics which will air tonight at 6:30 P.M., Eastern. Father will discuss a number of issues in bioethics, from the Church's teaching on brain death, to IVF.

To listen to Dr. Hilliard's interview, visit the In His Sign Network's website and load the appropriate media player, HERE

To hear Father Tad, head to the Relevant Radio online media player, HERE

Enjoy!

Save the Date: The NCBC Supports the National Association of Catholic Nurses 2014 Conference

Above and beyond all of her incredible work for The National Catholic Bioethics Center, Director of Bioethics and Public Policy, Dr. Marie Hilliard, also sits on the board of the National Association of Catholic Nurses (NACN) and supports all of their programming throughout the year. Dr. Hilliard, a registered nurse herself, is preparing with her fellow health care workers to attend the National Association of Catholic Nurses – USA's Annual Conference, 2014. The central theme of the event will be The Art of Nursing: Beyond Technology and the conference will be held from March 21st - 23rd.

Dr. Hilliard and the NACN encourage all Catholic nurses, nursing students, or any of those interested or affiliated with the field to attend the conference in Nashville, Tennessee this year.

If you, or anyone you know would like to attend the NACN seminar, a flyer with a rundown of rates and details can be seen HERE

For full information about the NACN 2014 Conference and to learn about the entire event, please feel free to view the conference registration packet, HERE.

BREAKING -- The NCBC Releases Updated Assessment of the Health and Human Services Mandate

Since October 1, 2013, the federal and state-subsidized health insurance exchanges called for by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) have been open for enrollment. In August 2012, the NCBC published a moral analysis of the options for non-exempt employers facing decisions about health insurance for their employees in light of the regulations established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).


In light of the inundating streams of (sometimes conflicting) information that come to the public regarding the manner in which the mandates are being implemented, and in light what the mandates will entail for Catholic Americans, The NCBC is pleased to announce the release of an updated assessment of the HHS Mandate. Our new publication, which will appear officially in the February edition of the monthly bulletin Ethics and Medics, revises the "previous moral analysis of the HHS mandate" published in August.

The new analysis offers:

"Additional relevant considerations to assist in understanding how employers and [now] individuals may decide, through health care exchanges or private plans, to provisionally purchase health insurance coverage for themselves and/or their employees without illicitly cooperating in evil. We also discuss how employers and individuals must consider a number of important moral and practical concerns as the exchanges become available, including provisions for coverage of direct abortion, uncertainties surrounding implementation, physicians who decline to accept exchange-based insurance, the escalation of costs within and outside the exchanges, the potential impact of scandal, and the serious duty to take action and remain steadfast in opposing the HHS mandate."


This crucial document is of great important for the public and we have given it a proud place as the masthead document of the newly christened OpenAccess page on the NCBC website. It is with pleasure that we provide this document to you for free, ahead of its slated February release. So please, take some time to read our HHS assessment now, before it hits the presses next year.

Visit the NCBC OpenAccess page HERE.

Happy Friday

The NCBC is Honored by a Visit from the Bishop of Lourdes, France

The NCBC was honored yesterday by a surprise visit from his Excellency Nicolas Brouwet, Bishop of Lourdes France!

The Bishop was visiting Philadelphia as part of his tour of several U.S. historic sites dedicated to Lourdes or Our Lady of Lourdes.

Why Philadelphia, why the NCBC, you ask?

The National Catholic Bioethics Center  has its office in a beautiful building in the historic neighborhood of Overbrook Farms in Philadelphia:

The NCBC Offices at the Katharine Drexel House

The Overbrook neighborhood is on the National Register of Historic Places and, fascinatingly, was the first 'planned community' built along the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad. A keystone of the project plan was the idea that the neighborhood be built around central institutions important to the community, namely, churches. As a result, the now historic Catholic Church of Our Lady of Lourdes was built in Philadelphia, just a stones-throw from where the NCBC offices would come to be.

Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Philadelphia, PA
Photo Courtesy of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish

The Bishop of Lourdes visited Our Lady of Lourdes Parish and was received on Monday by parishioners at a reception hosted by the Order of Malta, an Order of which NCBC President, Dr. John Haas and NCBC Director of Public Policy, Dr. Marie Hilliard are members. After the reception Dr. Haas invited Bishop Brouwet to stop briefly at the Center. His Excellency was happy to oblige and no sooner had he agreed than he was driven up to the NCBC to meet with us.

The Bishop's visit to the NCBC was as felicitous as it was exciting, for it served as a fitting reminder that the NCBC and its mission (a mission tied, ultimately, to healing and care) has long been consecrated to Our Lady of Lourdes. The NCBC staff gathered with the Bishop for a photo, and then prayed the NCBC's consecration prayer together.

Gathering for prayer

The NCBC Consecration Prayer

The NCBC Staff with The Most Reverend Nicolas Brouwet, Bishop of Lourdes

The Bishop was a kind and soft-spoken man. He asked about our building (which suffered water damage last month) and hoped our recovery would go smoothly. He was well aware of the disasters water can cause, as the Shrine of our Lady and the whole diocese of Lourdes have been working hard to recover from the European floods of last year.


The NCBC was grateful to receive such a guest!

Please pray for the NCBC and for Bishop Brouwet's travels this month!

NCBC Protects Organ Donation after Circulatory Death (DCD) Donors from Abuses

NCBC Joins the National Catholic Partnership on Disability (NCPD) in their Mutual Attempt to Protect Potential Organ Donors after Circulatory Death (DCD Donors) from Abuses

After a series of small victories in defense of organ donors, as well as a nationally broadcast NPR story, The National Catholic Bioethics Center and NCPD are renewing the organ donation conversation as they continue to collaboratively express their opposition to current drafts of policies drawn by the national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.  Specific concerns relate to the potential violation of the so-called “Dead Donor Rule” as well as the true informed consent of potential donors and their families. Persons with disabilities will be particularly vulnerable due to a number of factors, including the proposed change in eligibility criteria for potential donors. Despite the revision of some wording in the OPTN policies (a positive result of the aforementioned NPR story), there remains great potential for coercion and other abuses as explained in the NCBC's two statements to OPTN: HERE and HERE.

Through the tireless efforts of Dr. Marie Hilliard, the NCBC collaborated with NCPD’s past chairperson and current NCPD Board member, Steve Mikochik, JD, in developing a panel response delivered by Professor Mikochik at the 4^th International Congress on ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) Therapy, at Penn State Hershey Heart & Vascular Institute, Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, and Penn State College of Medicine on October 19, 2013.  The misuse of Extracorporeal Interval Support for Organ Retrieval (EISOR),  a procedure utilizing modified ECMO to bring about brain and cardiac death of potential organ donors, was identified by Professor Mikochik, whose comments can be read HERE.

NCBC Stands with Coalition of Over 100 Religious Leaders and Scholars in Celebrating HHS Delays

Standing Together for Religious Freedom and Welcoming the Announced Delay in Forcing Employers to Violate Their Consciences

On July 2, 2013, at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty joined over 100 prominent national religious leaders and scholars in releasing an open letter entitled Standing Together for Religious Freedom. The letter calls on the U.S. Administration and Congress to respect conscience rights and religious freedom threatened by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contraceptive and abortifacient mandate. Despite the fact that the HHS Final Rule with the  Guidance on the Temporary Enforcement Safe Harbor for Certain Employers, issued June 28, 2013, temporarily extended the “Safe harbor” (from faith-based agency implementation) until contract years beginning in 2014, the HHS, by its own admission, states that the Final Rule does little to narrow the breadth of this violation of freedom. Virtually all employers, including faith-based employers with few exempt agencies, are being forced to provide these morally offensive drugs, devices and procedures at no cost to employees. Archbishop Lori explained how this mandate has broad implications for all persons who respect freedom, regardless of a person’s faith, or even their lack of a faith: “As the Catholic bishops have said from the very beginning, the underlying issue with the HHS Mandate is not about any specific teaching. In fact, other signatories on the letter do not share our view on contraception and probably disagree with us in many other ways, but they understand the core religious freedom issue at stake here." http://www.usccb.org/news/2013/13-134.cfm.

On July 2nd the Administration announced that the mandate for employers of 50 or more employees to provide insurance coverage, including contraceptive and abortifacient coverage under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), will not be enforced until January 2015 (from January 2014).  There is no indication of the status of the mandate on individuals to purchase health insurance as mandated by January 2014.  The Administration indicated that it would be providing proposed rules for comment on reporting requirements of employers and insurers pursuant to the PPACA: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/07/02/we-re-listening-businesses-about-health-care-law. However, a company which provides health insurance coverage for employees, regardless of the number of employees, continues to be bound by the HHS Mandate as of August 2012 (unless it is grandfathered or faith-based and exempt - constituting virtually few companies - or if it is faith-based and temporarily safe harbored).

The NCBC is a signatory to eleven amicus briefs in support of employers who object to being forced to violate religious freedom of conscience through these unjust provisions, and receives numerous calls from employers questioning, “What are we to do?” Employers always express concern for the well-being of their employees, citing the untenable position in which our government, founded on the right to protect this sacred freedom, has placed them. This 4th of July, more than ever, calls all people who respect our Constitution, regardless of their faith-tradition, to join together in prayer for the future of this great country.

May God Bless America!

Another Victory for the NCBC, Religious Liberty, and Freedom of Conscience

As reported by the Associated Press on various news websites, the Federal Appeals Case lodged by Hobby Lobby against the Department of Health and Human Services made some major headway as the company was granted a temporary reprieve from HHS mandated fines for noncompliance; the abeyance of which goes hand-in-hand with the charge from the court that Hobby Lobby be granted more time to proceed in arguing their case for exemption from the unjust Mandates. This is an especially heartening victory for the NCBC, as The Center filed an amicus brief supporting Hobby Lobby in this case. We congratulate Hobby Lobby and applaud its owners for standing their ground thus far.

Some Good News at The National Catholic Bioethics Center

Some good news today!

After the committed and concerted effort on the part of so many, in particular, Dr. Marie Hilliard of the NCBC and Stephen Mikochik representing the National Catholic Partnership on Disability, the Board of Directors of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) has agreed to table, for further review, the controversial proposal to revise the requirements for a form of organ donation known as: Controlled Donation after Circulatory Death (DCD). NCBC's concerns for this proposal were reviewed and discussed at the OPTN meeting on June 24-25, 2013. The NCBC is grateful to OPTN for their willingness to listen to its and other agency and individual concerning this proposal, and looks forward to further constructive dialogue with OPTN. It is imperative that those wishing to support organ donation and transplantation  programs, including NCBC as well as donors, beneficiaries, and the health care providers involved in organ transplantation, feel assured that programs protect informed consent and the dead donor rule. Again, thanks are extend to the board of directors of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network for their willingness to consider these concerns.

Let's be thankful for these victories, and let us all continue to pray for strength and change while we face so many other difficulties as Catholic Americans.

Happy Friday.

The NCBC Releases Formal Response to Yesterday's Legal Decisions

Following the excellent and on-point response of  NCBC President, Dr. John Haas, regarding the Supreme Court's ruling on DOMA,  all of the ethicists at The National Catholic Bioethics Center, in an effort spearheaded by NCBC Director of Public Policy, Dr. Marie Hilliard, have worked together to produce a follow-up response to the legal ruling:

SCOTUS Got It Wrong:

The Defense of Marriage Continues

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) failed to recognize that the people of the United States, through their elected legislators and popular referenda, have lawmaking authority under our Constitution. As demonstrated in 38 states, the people of the United States understand, as the courts apparently do not, that it is impossible to redefine marriage. From time immemorial, the unique and life-giving relationship of a man and a woman in marriage has been protected by society because of the unique contribution that marriage makes to the common good, and especially to the good of children. Children are the fruit of marriage, who need protection and nurturing for the benefit of current and future society. Claims of “equal protection” have nothing to do with this issue, as there is nothing equal to the marriage between a man and a woman.

Despite these facts, SCOTUS, in its United States v. Windsor ruling,[1] held that the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)[2] violates the Equal Protection component of the Due Process Clause of the 5^th Amendment of the United States Constitution.  The ruling, while correctly speaking to the procedural right of states to establish their own laws, erroneously finds that DOMA impinges on states’ rights to define marriage. The ruling therefore wrongly forbids the Congress from defining marriage at the federal level.  This not only represents a contradiction in law, but a misunderstanding of the concept of federalism.  If federal policies should not automatically become state policies, neither should state policies automatically become federal policies.

All is not lost, as the SCOTUS ruling stopped short of mandating the recognition of same-sex marriages across state lines: it left intact Section 2 of DOMA allowing each state to continue to recognize or not same-sex marriages contracted in other states. Thus, the discussion and debates will continue, not only at the state level, but also in the United States Congress, which had promulgated DOMA. Yet this is small consolation, given the tenor of the majority opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy. In his opinion, Kennedy held that the view of the millions of his fellow citizens who favor traditional marriage is based on discrimination which demeans and injures homosexuals. This is manifestly false and misleading.

SCOTUS also issued a second ruling, Hollingsworth v. Perry.[3]  This addressed California’s Proposition 8, the second of two ballot initiatives[4] in which the people of that state defined marriage as between one man and one woman. Proposition 8, was upheld by the California Supreme Court.[5]  However, it was ruled unconstitutional under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the 14^th Amendment of the United States Constitution by both the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (a single judge) and the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Thus, both courts refused to uphold the will of the people concerning a legally adopted constitutional amendment within the State of California. Since California state officials refused to defend their own state Constitution, the proponents of Proposition 8 sought and were granted standing as petitioners in both the District Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. These same petitioners appealed the ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to SCOTUS.

While not ruling on the merits of the case, SCOTUS refused to recognize the standing of the petitioners, referring the case back to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. SCOTUS also vacated the ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but not the District Court ruling which applied only to the Northern District of California, thus leaving the rest of the state's law intact. California’s Constitution states that all laws that have not been overturned by a federal court of appeal must be enforced. Thus, since SCOTUS vacated the ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, same-sex marriage remains illegal in most of California. Despite this legal fact, the Governor of California  has directed that all counties in the state of California issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Debate will continue at the state level. The citizens of California, and not the courts (and more egregiously not a single trial judge), have the right to decide what they legally will recognize as marriage in their own state.

When the “Equal Protection” clauses are selectively applied by judges no one is protected. One need only review the ever-growing case law  and government policies against those who are attempting to stand up for traditional marriage: Catholic adoption agencies, faith-based marriage pavilions, and private wedding vendors all are facing discrimination under the heading of “equal protection.” The rights of conscience and of religious freedom are at the very core of our nation’s history and the tradition of self-government. We must continue to bring these principles forward as we work to advance the truth concerning marriage and its importance to a well-ordered society.

This is just another example of why it is so important to participate in the U.S. Bishops’ Fortnight for Freedom[6] to defend marriage, freedom and the rule of law.

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[1] United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. ___ (2013).

[2] Pub.L. 104–199, 110 Stat. 2419, enacted September 21, 1996, 1 U.S.C. § 7 and 28 U.S.C. § 1738C.

[3] Hollingsworth v. Perry, 570 U.S. ___ (2013).

[4] The wording of Proposition 8 was precisely the same as that which had passed in Proposition 22 in 2000, as an ordinary statute and not a state constitutional amendment as in Proposition 8.  Proposition 22 had been invalidated by the State Supreme Court in 2008.  See: In re Marriage Cases (2008) 43 Cal.4th 757 [76 Cal.Rptr.3d 683, 183 P.3d 384].

[5] Strauss v. Horton 46 Cal.4th 364, 93 Cal.Rptr.3d 591, 207 P.3d 48.

[6] http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/fortnight-for-freedom/index.cfm?utm_source=Invitation+to+Join+Call+to+Prayer&utm_campaign=9Days+Participants%27+Invite%3A+Call+to+Prayer&utm_medium=email. 

NCBC and the Organ Donation Conversation

As heard on NPR today, the nation's organ transplant network will consider a controversial proposal to set new requirements for a form of organ donation known as: Controlled Donation after Circulatory Death (DCD).

The board of directors of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), which is operated under the United Network For Organ Sharing  (UNOS), opened a two-day meeting at the organization's headquarters in Richmond, Va., to consider new requirements for DCD, which involves the harvesting of a person's organs (to preserve their good condition) just minutes after the donor has experienced a cardiac arrest, often as a result of withdrawing life support. 

The concerns regarding this procedure are multitudinous; however, a paramount cause for worry is the timing of the evaluation for donor suitability.  The Institute of Medicine and OPTN’s own Ethics Committee advise that the donor’s/family’s decision to remove life support be made before any approach concerning donation is made to the family of the donor, or even the conscious patient.  The proposed Requirements will leave the timing of such evaluation and discussion up to the Organ Procurement Organization and the donor’s health care team.  Furthermore, the time frame to delay in harvesting organs, to determine that the heart has irreversibly stopped beating, will be left up to local policy, without invoking the national standard recommended by the Institute of Medicine.

The National Catholic Bioethics Center, while in full support of the truly amazing and life-saving programs of organ donation and transplantation, has had serious reservations about these proposals and wants to ensure the respect for the human rights and dignity of the donor. The NCBC, while aware of the importance of speed in obtaining critically needed viable organs for transplantation, wants to ensure that one life is not ended prematurely simply to expedite organ harvesting.  At the same time, the NCBC is supportive of programs that enable the ever-important preservation of another life, that of the recipient. To accomplish this, however, organ procurement programs must not violate true informed consent, nor can they violate the the dead donor rule.

The NCBC's Director of Public Policy, Dr. Marie Hilliard, also chairs the Ethics and Public Policy Committee of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability (NCPD), and has been following these developments very closely. Dr. Hilliard has made NCBC’s concerns known to OPTN in preparation for their meeting. You can read her commentary HERE.

Dr. Hilliard coordinated with the NCPD to arrange a successful interview between Rob Stein of NPR and Stephen Mikochik who spoke of behalf of the NCPD.  Dr. Hilliard commented on the interview, saying: “It is gratifying that through the NCBC’s collaboration with the National Catholic Partnership on Disability that there is a growing awareness of the significant threats to informed consent and the dead-donor rule in the proposed organ procurement policies.  The fact that providers and ethicists representing non-faith-based agencies also recognize these concerns demonstrates the breadth of the problem.  We trust that the OPTN will reconsider its proposal.”

The National Catholic Bioethics Center is proud to have hosted Steve Mikochik for the interview, which he conducted, with Dr. Hilliard's coordination, in the NCBC library. 

The program aired on NPR this morning, before the critical meetings, and Mr. Mikochik did an excellent job.

NCBC President, Dr. John Haas, was proud to have The Center so closely involved in these important issues and he was glad that this effort was: 

"Another wonderful example of the contributions being made by all here at the NCBC and a show of how all our varied talents work together to serve the Lord of Life and His loved ones!"

You can listen to the full NPR story and hear Mr. Mikochik's comments HERE.

Let's all pray that the life of each human is protected until its true, complete end.

The NCBC Supports the USCCB and Their "Fortnight for Freedom"

U.S. bishops have asked for a two-week period of prayer and action to address many current challenges to religious liberty. From issues such as the August 1, 2013 deadline marked for compliance with the HHS mandate, to the Supreme Court rulings that could redefine marriage in June; serious infringements to our Faith and our rights are present all around us. Catholic Americans are being called to stand up, engage in this Nation's dialogue, and especially, to pray for our country and leaders in what the Bishops have called the Fortnight for Freedom.

The Director of Bioethics and Public Policy at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, Dr. Marie T Hilliard,  as a citizen, registered nurse, and woman devoted to her faith, wanted to take a moment to speak in support of this effort: 

I hope that all persons who value the rights of conscience and religious liberty, will participate in whatever way they can in the Fortnight for Freedom activities. I simply cannot over-emphasize that many of the increasing number of consult calls the NCBC is receiving are from health care practitioners concerned about their ability to engage in the healing professions. They want healthcare to exist the way it was truly founded and meant to be: A source of healing and life, not destruction and death.

Never before have the threats to the religious freedom and consciences of Americans, including health care professionals, been so evident.  What is especially worrisome is that some of these threats are coming from the very government entrusted with protecting such freedoms. All Americans should be aware that, as these violations escalate, the very country we all love will be changed forever.

The Fortnight begins TODAY; so please, find more about how you can participate in the Fornight for Freedom.Visit the USCCB page HERE, and join the fight to protect our Faith and our Liberty.

Sincerely,

Dr. Marie Hilliard and The National Catholic Bioethics Center

Read it Before it's Printed! - Dr. Marie Hilliard Talks Surrogacy With OSV

The NCBC's Director of Bioethics and Public Policy, Dr. Marie Hilliard, recently spoke to Our Sunday Visitor about the ethical issues surrounding surrogate motherhood. 

Dr. Marie Hilliard

This Interview will be printed in the May 26th Edition of the weekly news publication Our Sunday Visitor; be sure to pick up a copy!

Below is an excerpt of the interview. For the full interview, click HERE. To read more news, click HERE

Our Sunday Visitor: Please discuss the ethical-moral issues of surrogate motherhood first, and then the peripheral issues such as the psychological and legal. 

Marie Hilliard: If you look at the ethical, moral and legal issues, they are not separate. What the Church teaches is based on what we call natural, moral law: that we can know the good by what we can know by reason. We do not have a distinction between how the good should be expressed in the public arena and what is the good in terms of the moral arena. My mother had a great saying about her version of what Paul, in Romans 2:15, has told us about how certain things are written on the hearts of women and men and can be known by reason: “Sanctity is sanity.” 

OSV: What does Church teaching say about surrogate motherhood? 

Hilliard: The Church has such great scholarship on this and other issues. For example, natural moral law, as it pertains to assisted reproductive technologies, is extremely well addressed in the document Donum Vitae (“The Gift of Life”) from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1987). In 2008, the same congregation issued further instruction on such matters in Dignitas Personae. Such documents are an invaluable resource to couples struggling with infertility.

The Church teaches that the child should be conceived as an act of love in the fruitfulness of a marriage. Further, the child has a right to be conceived through that natural act of love that demonstrates the ultimate source of love — the Creator who establishes the laws of nature pertaining to how human life is to be engendered and life is to be lived.

Parents don’t produce: They engender new life through an act of love, which is a sacred act; and they are called, as responsible parents, to love and raise that child. For this reason, we really can’t separate the psychological from the legal, the moral, the physical and the spiritual. The child has every right to be engendered through that natural act of love, and the child actually becomes the fruitfulness of the love of the parents. That triune relationship between the mom, the dad and the Creator is fractured with a surrogate pregnancy.

Click HERE to read more

For those interested, the OSV article included some excellent excerpts from the Catechism on this subject. Enjoy! Have a blessed and thankful Memorial Day.

Church Teaching on Surrogacy

Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe the child’s right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses’ ‘right to become a father and a mother only through each other’” (No. 2376). “A child is not something owed to one, but is a gift. The ‘supreme gift of marriage’ is a human person. A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged ‘right to a child’ would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights: the right ‘to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents,’ and ‘the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception’” (No. 2378). Donum Vitae, the 1987 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation: “[Surrogate motherhood] is contrary to the unity of marriage and to the dignity of the procreation of the human person. Surrogate motherhood represents an objective failure to meet the obligations of maternal love, of conjugal fidelity and of responsible motherhood; it offends the dignity and the right of the child to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up by his own parents; it sets up, to the detriment of families, a division between the physical, psychological and moral elements which constitute those families” (No. II-A-3). Dignitas Personae, the 2008 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Instruction on Certain Bioethical Questions: “With regard to the treatment of infertility, new medical techniques must respect three fundamental goods: a) the right to life and to physical integrity of every human being from conception to natural death; b) the unity of marriage, which means reciprocal respect for the right within marriage to become a father or mother only together with the other spouse; c) the specifically human values of sexuality which require ‘that the procreation of a human person be brought about as the fruit of the conjugal act specific to the love between spouses’” (No. 12).