take action

Protect conscience and care at Catholic hospitals by OPPOSING SB 169, a state version of the federal “EMTALA”

Quick Facts:

• Catholic hospitals provide emergency care guided by established ethical and religious directives for Catholic healthcare, ensuring medical excellence and moral integrity
• The existing Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) is enforced as federal law. The State does not need to duplicate the law, nor add unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Catholic hospitals have long complied with federal emergency care laws while honoring moral obligations. Ethical and religious directives ensure patients receive care that respects medical necessity and Catholic moral teachings, a balance threatened by a state EMTALA.
• If enacted, SB 169/HB372 could threaten the ability of Catholic hospitals to provide ethically grounded emergency care through unnecessary legal ambiguity and conflicts with constitutional protections for religious freedom and conscience rights.

OPPOSE House Bill 930, which would

• Prohibit the governor from opting Maryland into the new federal education tax credit program, even though the program takes no state funding
• Take away the ability of parents and students to use their 529 savings plans for K-12 education expenses, and would remove the incentives for parents, grandparents and other family members to save for a child’s K-12 education expenses.
• Preclude tax deductions for contributions to Invest in America accounts for children.

Quick Facts:

  Opting into the Federal Education Tax Credit

• Provides benefits to kids in both public and nonpublic schools.
• Costs Maryland nothing (no budget impact).
• Keeps Maryland dollars in Maryland for Maryland kids.
• Keeps families in Maryland. Families move to other states to avail themselves of opportunities like this. Maryland can’t afford to lose more residents.
• Plus, a recent poll of Maryland voters found overwhelming support for the tax credit:
  • 78% support for the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit
  • Breaking it down by groups:
    • Democrats: 80% | Republicans: 76% | Independents: 74%
    • White voters: 77% | Black voters: 80%

  Maryland 529 Program

• The Maryland 529 Program has helped families save for K-12 education since 2018.
• HB 930 would end this option and
• Would bar families using their existing 529 scholarship accounts for their children’s K-12 tuition and expenses, for which many have been building savings for years.

Our state lawmakers should not cut Marylanders off from federal benefits.

Support HB 630, which would ensure immigration detention facilities in Maryland meet proper structural, safety and humanitarian standards by prohibiting re-purposing existing buildings in our communities such as warehouses, hotels or office buildings.

Quick Facts:

These buildings often lack adequate ventilation, sanitation, security and living conditions. 

• Ensures individuals are not housed in unsafe or repurposed structures lacking proper standards
• Prioritizes humane conditions and appropriate facility design
• Reinforces accountability for any entity operating detention spaces
• All individuals deserve safe and suitable housing conditions while in custody

Requiring the state to collect critical data will provide informed and transparent maternal healthcare policy.

Position: SUPPORT Senate Bill 485

Quick Facts:

• Maryland is one of only three states that does not collect or report critical fiscal data on maternal and reproductive healthcare. This leaves a major gap in understanding economic and healthcare impacts on families and communities.
• Accurate, comprehensive data helps identify disparities in access to women’s healthcare and supports more effective and equitable allocation of resources.
• SB 485 would require data to be collected, advancing accountability and transparency and helping Maryland better understand and respond to the healthcare needs of women.
• This means Maryland would be better able to make sound public-policy decisions that promote women’s health, equity and fiscal responsibility, ensuring compassionate care for all Marylanders.

Support SB 323 and HB 409, which would end the automatic charging of youth as adults in certain instances, allowing most youth to begin their case in the juvenile court system, rather than mandating that the adjudication of their case begin in the adult court system.  

This bill does not prevent those youth from being ultimately charged as an adult. It is about where their case starts. 

The Supreme Court of the United States and our U.S. Catholic bishops have agreed that the principals of human development and restorative justice dictate that youth should not be treated the same as adults within the justice system. 

Quick Facts:

• Approximately 87% of kids charged as adults ultimately never end up with adult criminal convictions in their cases
• Maryland sends more young people to adult court based on offense type, per capita, than any other state except Alabama
• Maryland ranks 4th highest in the country for the number of people convicted as adults when they were children
• Since 2000, half of all U.S. states have narrowed or eliminated automatic adult charging.
• After over a decade of study and recommendations from three separate gubernatorial commissions, it is time for Maryland to act.
• The current system disproportionately affects Black youth: nearly 80% of Maryland youth charged in adult court are Black.

SB 323 | HB 409 is a vital step toward correcting Maryland’s outdated “automatic charging” system because it will eliminate automatic charging for children.  

SB 323 | HB 409 leaves the most serious offenses, such as first-degree murder, assault and rape, automatically subject to adult court jurisdiction, but proposes to start about 75% of cases currently subject to automatic treatment as an adult in juvenile court. 

Support Incarcerated Job Training Act, HB 194, which would require the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services to develop skilled-trade apprenticeship programs for incarcerated individuals. 

Quick Facts:

This restorative rehabilitation approach benefits society: 

• Provides marketable job skills to support a person’s successful reentry into society
• Lowers recidivism rates and supports safer communities
• Stabilizes families and reinforces personal responsibility through the opportunity to earn wages that may be sent to a spouse, children or other dependents in financial need.