Organization

"I am Chair of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability (NCPD), which is an agency approved by the U.S. bishops to provide pastoral guidance for persons with disabilities. On behalf of NCPD, I urge you to not veto but to sign into law H.B. 1114, and thus help keep physician-assisted suicide and the threat it presents to disabled people from spreading."

"I am a resident of Montgomery County, Maryland, and also a consultant with the National Catholic Partnership on Disability (NCPD), on whose behalf I am testifying today. NCPD wishes to express our grave reservations with H.B. 449, as well as with the proposed amendment offered by the Department of Legislative Services, and urge that it not be voted out of Committee in its original or amended form."

 There is no bright line between a disability considered terminal and one that is not. H.3884 offers lethal prescriptions to people whose conditions “will, within reasonable medical judgment, produce death within six months.”5 Such predictions are notoriously unreliable.6 Many people defy the odds and live on with their disabilities for many years.

Call to Action: Stop the Violation of the Right to Religious Liberty Last August, the U.S.

Dr. Lake:

I Chair the National Catholic Partnership on Disability (NCPD). NCPD was established thirty years ago to implement the Pastoral Statement on People with Disabilities of the U.S. Catholic bishops. On behalf of NCPD and the fourteen million Catholics with disabilities it serves, I urge UNOS to reject the proposal for changing the DCD Model Elements.

Dr. Lake:

On behalf of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability, I offer the following comments on OPTN's "Plain Language Rewrite."

Dear Chairman Hammen:

I am emeritus professor of Constitutional Law at Temple University in Philadelphia and past chair of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability (NCPD). NCPD was established thirty years ago to implement the Pastoral Statement on People with Disabilities of the U.S. Catholic bishops. On behalf of NCPD, I write in response to H.B. 449, pending before the House Committee on Health and Government Operations.

Initiative Petition 1112 will allow Massachusetts residents to ask their physicians for lethal medication to kill themselves. Presently, it authorizes only those with terminal diseases to make such request. Nevertheless, if adopted, it will create a real threat to all people with disabilities.

The National Catholic Partnership on Disability expresses extreme dismay at the apparent wholesale disregard for the protection of conscience, including the consciences of those working to assure respect for all persons, including those with disabilities, exhibited in the final regulations which implement the rules for group health plans and health insurance coverage under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Health Care Reform).

Work has not only an objective dimension, through which the sustenance of individuals and their families is secured, but, even more importantly, a subjective one, through which humans actualize their creativity and imprint their personalities on the world they inhabit. In short, work is a vital way human beings manifest their dignity. No safety-net, no matter how secure, that deprives disabled people of the opportunity to work can be justified. Regrettably, CMS’ proposed rule may do just that.