Organization

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. 

There are no safeguards to ensure that such patients, when conscious, are competent to make donation decisions. There are no safeguards to ensure that such patients are not clinically depressed. There are no safeguards to ensure that members of the local OPO or primary health care team are trained to identify such depression. In fact, there are virtually no safeguards at all to ensure that the donation decision is voluntary. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that such safeguards were thought unnecessary because such patients were considered more valuable when dead. 

"[Prenatal testing and diagnosis] techniques were developed to enhance the well-being of mother and child and foster the ability to deliver healthy babies.  Yet, when the goal is achieved by delivering only healthy babies and denying life to those deemed less than perfect, a Machiavellian distortion of the good these techniques intended is effected."

"Christ calls the Church to provide for the spiritual, intellectual, and emotional needs of all her people as they journey toward maturity in the faith. Catechetical and academic instruction are essential components of that journey. Catholics with disabilities are equally entitled with all the faithful to such instruction appropriate to their needs."

"The National Catholic Partnership on Disability (NCPD) applauds the 240 members of Congress who supported The Stupak-Pitts Amendment in the US House of Representatives’ Health Care Reform proposal (H.R. 3962).  This amendment would permanently prevent the funding of abortion within the public option of the plan."

"On behalf of NCPD and the 14 million disabled Catholics it represents, I urge you not to promulgate the draft NIH guidelines on human stem cell research. Rather than aiding disabled people, the guidelines will ultimately compromise their lives by advancing the proposition that human beings with disabling conditions are expendable."