Organization

Example of legislation regarding the physician's or patient's decision to withhold or continue to give life-sustaining care or treatment.

"We oppose the initiative because it is cynically misleading. We oppose the initiative because it substitutes lethal prescriptions and illusory safeguards for compassionate care. We oppose the initiative because it does not mandate family involvement.  Finally, we oppose Initiative 1000 because its supporters aim to include people with disabilities and we emphatically reject assisted suicide as a response to disability."

"We offer the present statement to explore what light Catholic moral teaching sheds on whether health providers can ever withhold or withdraw life-sustaining care or treatment they consider futile."

The National Catholic Office for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD) facilitates the mandates of the 1978 Pastoral Statement of U.S. Catholic Bishops on People with Disabilities.

NCPD takes this occasion to thank the bishops for the 1978 Pastoral Statement on People with Disabilities. The statement furnished the impetus for creating, four years later, in 1982, NCPD out of the National Advisory Committee on Ministry with Handicapped People. NCPD has also used the 1978 Pastoral Statement as a foundation from which to press for civil legislation, fostering greater participation in public life on the part of citizens with disabilities.