Office of Pro Life

WASHINGTON -- Richard Doerflinger will retire as associate director of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, April 29, after 36 years of service to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). After a nationwide search, Greg Schleppenbach, executive director of the Nebraska Catholic Conference, has been hired as new associate director of Pro-Life Activities.

I was nervous and uncomfortable as I drove to the hospice facility to visit my Dad. Just a few weeks prior, he had suffered a severe fall that damaged his spinal cord and left him unable to move from his neck down. It took my family and me quite a while to accept that my dad was a person with quadriplegia. It took Dad even longer.

Joint Letter to Congress: 26 Organization Urge Passage of Conscience Protection Act of 2016

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) joined twenty-five other major pro-life, religious, and health care organizations on April 19 urging the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the Conscience Protection Act of 2016 (H.R. 4828). Signatories include ten medical groups representing tens of thousands of health care professionals who object to abortion and are seeking legal protection to serve their patients in good conscience.

One afternoon early in my mothering days, I found myself at the end of the preschool pickup line making small talk with another mom. One toddler orbited her feet while she switched a baby seat from arm to arm.

Pregnancy should be a time of joyful expectation. But what if the baby is believed to have a disability or a life-threatening health condition? Prenatal screening is quickly becoming a routine part of obstetric care, in many cases using a simple blood test to screen for such conditions. Because of the growing frequency of this testing, parents are increasingly told by their doctors of potential problems with their pregnancies and are encouraged to abort, or to have additional tests done to determine a diagnosis.

Our son Charlie* was born with Down syndrome in 2007. My training as a developmental psychologist had focused on the deficits faced by people with disabilities and how to deal with those challenges. But I soon found that it was of limited use for understanding my own son. He certainly has challenges that come with his diagnosis, but they make up only a small part of life with our wonderful little boy.