NCBC Ethicist to Speak in Corpus Christi This Weekend

As he reaches the tail-end of a particularly busy week, NCBC Staff Ethicist, John A. DiCamillo, will be gearing up for a pair of presentations at the 2014 Ministry Conference in the Diocese of Corpus Christi, Texas this weekend. The event takes place on Saturday, January 11th and John will be delivering two talks entitled: Living Stones: Catholics, Business, and Cooperation with Evil and: Worship vs. Practice? The HHS Mandate and Religious Liberty. 

Both presentations will address key aspects of Catholic identity and religious liberty, especially in the light of the injustices Catholics in the U.S. are facing today.

NCBC Staff Ethicist, John A. DiCamillo

For more information on the Conference, and to view a poster for the event, please visit the related Diocesan web page, HERE.

Safe travels, John!

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.

Who is Free to Exercise Religion? An NCBC Ethicist Weighs In

John A. Di Camillo, Staff Ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, has just completed an article that targets and addresses conflicting opinions that have arisen in the United States courts as the Judiciary continues in attempting to delineate and interpret the "identity, purpose, and scope of business entities and the relationship of those entities to their owners and to religious exercise" in light of the HHS mandates and government enforcement of the unjust laws.

John Di Camillo provides a deeper look into the ongoing battle for religious freedom as:

"Two federal courts of appeal have come to opposite conclusions regarding whether for-profit companies can claim religious liberty protections. All for-profit and most non-profit organizations in the United States continue to be impacted by the legal requirement that was established by a provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, and incrementally clarified by regulations from the Department of Health and Human Services, which has come to be known as the HHS Mandate. The HHS Mandate requires that employers who offer health insurance include, at no cost to employees, the full range of FDA-approved contraceptive drugs and devices, including surgical sterilizations as well as abortion-inducing drugs and devices such as ellaOne, Plan B, and IUDs. Providing this sort of insurance coverage is at odds with the moral values and religious convictions of many U.S. citizens and business owners, especially Catholics."

Read the full article HERE.

The NCBC Supports: The USCCB Life Issues Forum

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a Call to Action through their Life Issues Forum. Dr. Marie Hilliard, Director of Public Policy at the National Catholic Bioethics Center said of the press release: "The examples given by the USCCB  are just a few of the many trials Christians have faced as they attempt to defend their faith and uphold moral teaching...the truly heartrending story of Cathy Cenzon-DeCarlo is one example that has been cited for years since it occurred. It is a perfect illustration of what many Catholics are up against in America today, in healthcare and in all the areas of our lives."

As Catholics we must speak up. We must act.

From the USCCB:

LIFE ISSUES FORUM                                                       August 20, 2013
           

Stand with Sr. Jane Marie                                                 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
By Deirdre A. McQuade

Cathy, Sr. Jane Marie, and Christine are three Catholic women whose freedom to work according to their faith is being severely threatened. In March they traveled to Washington, DC, urging Congress to pass the Health Care Conscience Rights Act (H.R. 940, S. 1204), which would protect their freedom of conscience. Now they need your help: read their stories below, watch and share the brief video on their stories, and stand in solidarity with them by contacting Congress today!

Catherina “Cathy” Cenzon-DeCarlo is an operating room nurse at a major hospital in New York City. In 2009, Cathy was forced to participate in a 22-week abortion against her clearly-stated objections. Cathy has suffered deep trauma from witnessing the abortion and accounting for all of the unborn child’s body parts afterwards. She says it was like “a horror film unfolding.” Cathy sued the hospital; but while her employer’s coercion was illegal, she had no recourse in the court. Since then, many other nurses and medical staff have told her she’s not alone. Contrary to their medical oath to “do no harm,” they, too, have been pressured to destroy life rather than preserve it. Cathy and her colleagues need the legal protection of the Health Care Conscience Rights Act to ensure that such discrimination never happens again.

Sr. Jane Marie Klein is the chair of the board for the non-profit Franciscan Alliance, a 13-hospital Catholic health care system in Indiana, Michigan & Illinois, serving over four million patients each year regardless of their ability to pay. Under the guise of “preventive services for women,” this Administration is forcing nearly all employers to cover sterilization procedures, as well as contraception and abortifacient drugs and devices in their health plans at no cost to the employee – the so-called “HHS mandate.” The Franciscan Alliance has been a Catholic system for over 130 years, but does not qualify for an exemption as a “religious employer” according to the mandate’s extremely narrow definition. Soon they will face crippling fines for being faithful to Catholic teaching. The Franciscan Alliance is suing the federal government to protect their freedom of conscience. The Health Care Conscience Rights Act would properly define who qualifies as a religious employer so that much-needed medical facilities and charitable organizations will be able to continue serving our neediest neighbors.

Christine Ketterhagen is a co-owner and board member of a family-run company, Hercules Industries, in Denver, Colorado. They provide excellent benefits, and draw the line at payment for contraceptives and drugs like Ella marketed as “emergency” contraception that can actually cause early abortions, Because of the Administration’s mandate, Hercules will also face punishing fines if they refuse to comply — $162,500 per week! They, too, are suing the Administration so that they will not be forced to include objectionable coverage against their core values. If passed into law, the Health Care Conscience Rights Act will establish conscience rights protections for private entities that are not faith-based organizations.

Cathy, Sr. Jane Marie, and Christine tell their stories in our YouTube video: Speak Up for Conscience Rights Today.  Watch it and then share the link with friends, colleagues, and family members. 

Finally, stand in solidarity with these brave women. Send your personalized email to Congress at www.usccb.org/conscience. It only takes a few minutes!

Thank you for speaking up for conscience rights today!

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!

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.

WATCH: Father Tad Pacholczyk Talks Human Cloning, Insurance Coverage, and Angelina Jolie on Live T.V.

Last night, May 30th, 2013, Ethicist and Director of Education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, Father Tad Pacholczyk had the opportunity to film a segment with Raymond Arroyo for his show The World Over in Washington, D.C..

Father Tad

The live broadcast occurred at 8 P.M. Eastern time and, in under 20 minutes, Father Tad tackled the therapeutic embryonic cloning debate, patenting human genetic material, the moral concerns of insurance coverage for contraceptives and even news relating to Angelina Jolie's mastectomy!

Watch this fantastic news interview on youtube, HERE beginning at minute 41:15.

If you have cable television with access to EWTN, you can watch secondary broadcasts on:

 - Sunday at 7 P.M. Eastern

- Monday at 10 P.M. Eastern

And be sure to read father Tad's written response to the recent advances in therapeutic embryonic cloning for stem cells HERE and HERE.

Happy Friday!

Did You Know?

• In response to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contraceptive mandate, there are 60 cases and over 190 individuals representing  hospitals, universities, businesses, schools, and individuals all speaking with one voice to affirm the freedom of religion guaranteed in the US Constitution. 

• To date, 31 for-profit lawsuits have been filed over the HHS mandate. 

• To date, of the 26 for-profit plaintiffs that have obtained rulings touching on the merits of their claims against the Mandate, 19 have secured injunctive relief against it, for a current score of 19-7. 

• The NCBC is signatory to eleven amicus briefs is support of these legal challenges, six of which have received a ruling in their favor for an injunction against the enforcement of the Mandate until a full court hearing: 

1. Korte (7^th Circuit) 

2. O’Brien (8th Circuit) 

3. Annex Medical (8th Circuit)  

4. Newland (Hercules; 10th Circuit) 

5. Weingartz Supply Co. (Legatus; 6^th)  

6. Fresh Unlimited (Gilardi; D.C. Circuit)

Now you know!

You can read more details about these and other cases on our Advocacy page.

The NCBC Supports Texas Bill To Protect Vulnerable Persons From Violations of Informed Consent

The NCBC has been working with the Texas Catholic Conference, the Texas Legislature, and other parties, to ensure the protection of vulnerable persons from violations of informed consent in end-of-life care.

In 1999 the Texas Legislature passed the Texas Advanced Directive Act, which was signed into law.  This law contains controversial provisions which could violate not only the right to informed consent, but the right to life of vulnerable persons, such as those with disabilities and those with dementia.  The legislation is better known as the Texas Futility Care Law.  This law allows health care facilities to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment ten days after giving written notice to the patient or surrogate decision-maker that the facility considers the treatment futile care.

In recent years the Texas Catholic Conference has worked dilligently and collaborated with the NCBC and their Director of Bioethics and Public Policy, Dr. Marie Hilliard, as well as the National Catholic Partnership on Disability (of which Dr. Marie Hilliard is a Board Member) to address the ethical problems in the existing statute, as well as to provide protections in the use of Do Not Attempt Resuscitation orders.  

These efforts have resulted in a legislative proposal this session:  S.B. 303: An Act Relating to Advance Directives and Health Care and Treatment Decisions. 

The policy improvements being proposed in S.B. 303 provide significant protections to patients and their families, reflective of incremental legislation.  Incremental legislation is morally licit because, while imperfect,  it significantly improves existing morally problematic law.  Such an approach represents the most that the proponents may achieve in the legislative session. Incremental legislation was recognized as being moral by Blessed John Paul II in speaking of abortion laws, who cites how one: ”could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality.” 

• [Evangelium Vitae, 1995, par. 73.]

To read more about the NCBC's position on these legislative changes, please read the following letter in support of S.B. 303: 

An Act Relating to Advance Directives and Health Care and Treatment Decisions  

By Dr. John Haas
President
The National Catholic Bioethics Center