Telemedicine Chemical Abortion: A Catholic Medical Association Policy with Recommendations
June 11, 2025
In this essay, CMA details these concerns and proposes regulatory and patient-provider reforms to correct or minimize them. These recommendations are offered with CMA’s recognition that all
patients – including patients undergoing an abortion – are owed fundamental ethical protections and medical measures that minimize harm, which are absent in the telemedicine chemical abortion protocol. These recommendations are presented along with the CMA’s reiteration of its constant objection to direct abortion as authentic healthcare, under any circumstances.
Ethical Guidelines for Addressing Common Dilemmas in the Practice of Medicine
June 24, 2024
Living in a secular society, it is impossible to avoid moments when one must cooperate with evil, that is, act in ways that assist in the immoral actions of another, and it can be challenging to
find ways to limit one’s involvement. Physicians and other healthcare professionals need to be assured that the refusal to perform certain activities is different from the refusal to treat the patient. They remain willing to provide care within ethical boundaries that the patient, or even management, may reject. Such situations may present moral conflicts for the physician….
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POLST Paradigm and Form
This white paper, prepared by a working group of the Catholic Medical Association, provides a commentary on a new type of end-of-life document called a POLST form (Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment) as well as on its model (or “paradigm”) for implementation across the United States. This white paper, prepared by a working group of…
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Resolutions of the CMA General Assembly 2012
On September 28, 2012, the General Assembly of the Catholic Medical Association approved two important resolutions: one on the importance of traditional marriage for the well being of children and the second on opposing the HHS mandate. On September 28, 2012, the General Assembly of the Catholic Medical Association approved the following two resolutions: 1.…
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Clarifying Church Teaching on End of Life Treatment and Care
In the February 13, 2009, issue of Commonweal, seven directors of bioethics programs at Jesuit universities (the Consortium of Jesuit Bioethics Programs) discussed their understanding of recent magisterial teaching regarding artificial nutrition and hydration (typically called ANH). The Catholic Medical Association responded to some questionable points in this article in a statement which was published…
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2004 Statement on Health Care Reform
In September 2004, the Catholic Medical Association Health Care Task Force published the Statement, Heath Care in America: A Catholic Proposal for Renewal. Drafted by a multi-disciplinary panel composed of physicians and other health care providers, scholars, businessmen and clergy, Health Care in America provides a systematic overview of the challenges to health care delivery…
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Resolving Conflicts about Treatments Deemed Futile
From time to time the Catholic Medical Association (CMA) is asked to intervene in cases in which a physician or health-care facility has made and is enforcing a judgment of medical futility, consistent with an internal policy and/or state law, over the objections of a patient and/or family member(s). While CMA cannot intervene in particular…
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Position Paper on HPV Immunization
The Catholic Medical Association (CMA) released a position paper on implementation of the new vaccine for HPV, Gardasil®, on January 18, 2007. The CMA recognizes that Gardasil® is safe, effective, and its use can be ethically acceptable yet, at the same time, rejects efforts at the federal level, and in some states, to mandate that…