About Personal Ethics Consultations

We field questions from people in a variety of roles:

• patients or their families;

• doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health care professionals;

• scientific researchers;

• priests or consecrated men and women religious; and

• anyone with questions about how their personal or professional activities intersect with bioethical issues.

Submit a question here!

NCBC responds to a wide range of bioethical issues, including but not limited to the following:

• Proportionality of treatment (ordinary vs. extraordinary means of preserving life), such as whether and why ventilators can be discontinued

• How to distinguish legitimate refusals of treatment from euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide

• Medically assisted nutrition and hydration, including under what conditions it might be legitimately declined

• Abortion, especially how to distinguish the immoral destruction of unborn children from morally sound therapies that may result in a child’s death

• Hospice and palliative care, including how to distinguish between legitimate pain management or withholding treatment and euthanasia

• Contraception, especially how to distinguish immoral pregnancy prevention from morally sound therapies that can reduce the likelihood of pregnancy

• Abortion-derived cell lines and the morality of using medical products developed or manufactured using them, such as certain pediatric vaccines and COVID-19 vaccines

• Informed consent, including adequate scientific and moral information and assessments of trustworthiness

• Cooperation with evil in the workplace, shopping, or investing

• Sterilization, especially how to distinguish immoral sterilizing acts from morally sound therapies that may result in sterility

• Perinatal hospice, and how to distinguish acceptable care of a baby with a poor prognosis from so-called therapeutic abortion or therapeutic abandonment

• Fertility care, including how to identify morally sound infertility testing or treatments and how to discern and legitimately apply fertility awareness to achieve or postpone pregnancy

• Gender transitioning, including distinctions between sound interventions to address gender dysphoria or disorders of sex development and immoral hormonal or surgical mutilation

Submit a question here!

Nothing! This is a free service. We ask for your support prayer, spreading the word, feedback we can share with others, and financial gifts. We are grateful for anything you can do to keep this unique, high-quality service available to everyone free of charge!

The Personal Consultations Department has four main areas of activity:

• Fielding Consults - responding to consultation requests by email or phone, which is done by all the ethicists of the NCBC as well as by the fellows and interns of the Personal Consultations Department, under the supervision of an experienced ethicist

• Content Curation - organizing existing consultation resources, creating new resources, in-depth review of consultation content, research with a view to formulating new guidance or refining existing NCBC consultation guidance, development of case study databases, publication of articles or books related to consultation content, and similar

• Operations - general management of the department, including policies and procedures, scheduling, record keeping, orientation of fellows and interns or new ethicists fielding consults, data tracking, website management, contracts, budgeting, and similar

• Personal engagement - collecting and responding to consultation feedback and information requests related to the Personal Consultations Department, communications with potential and existing benefactors or supporters, communications outreach through email or media and social media, and similar

Yes! The flagship program of the Personal Consultations Department is the Fellows & Interns Program. It is designed to help form new ethicists and other suitable candidates in the mold of fidelity to the Magisterium, intellectual balance, and practical experience that characterizes NCBC. Fellowships will be part-time annual positions with a small stipend while internships will be on a volunteer basis for a more flexible time frame, as suited to the situation and candidate with the approval of the Personal Consultations Director.

The Personal Consultations Department has also launched a Case Study Database Program, which shares anonymized, real-life case studies for use in university courses. It aims to help students improve their listening, critical thinking skills, and appreciation for patients’ experiences.

The Personal Consultations Department participates in NCBC’s mission by providing bioethical guidance and resources to persons in need, enabling them to make decisions that uphold human dignity and draw them closer to Jesus Christ and his Church.

The Personal Consultations Department serves to accomplish NCBC’s vision by offering an accessible means through which Catholics and all people of good will can draw upon the light and life of Christ in the Catholic moral tradition, free of charge, helping to form their consciences when confronted with ethical dilemmas in health care and biomedical research.

The work of the Personal Consultations Department enables the understanding and application of the teachings of the Catholic Church on human life and dignity in concrete situations involving real people, accompanying those who have questions and equipping them with guidance and resources to form their consciences.

The Personal Consultations Department also equips its fellows and interns with on-the-ground consultation training so they can acquire the virtue of prudence and apply respect for human life and dignity with integrity, charity, and wisdom in their future professional activities, whether as ethicists, health care professionals, academics, religious ministers, or other roles in their communities.

Absolutely!

• Please pray for the NCBC, in particular for the work of the Personal Consultations Department and for all those in need to contact us.

• Send us feedback, comments, suggestions, and prayers.

• Spread the word about NCBC’s Personal Consultations through social media or other means of communication. Your local parish is a great place to start—many pastors aren’t aware of the practical assistance we offer to them and all their faithful, free of charge!

• Make a donation for Personal Consultations and encourage your friends, family, and local community to support us.

• If you or someone you know is interested and qualified, apply for a Fellowship or Internship when a position becomes available—and sign up for updates in the meantime!

• If you have experience and are willing to volunteer, check out the Skilled Volunteer page.