Richard M. Doerflinger is Associate Director of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, where he has worked for 33 years. Among his duties is the preparation of policy statements and congressional testimony on abortion, euthanasia, conscience rights in health care, embryo research, and other medical-moral issues for the bishops’ conference. He is also an Adjunct Fellow in Bioethics and Public Policy at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, and serves on the Advisory Board to The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity.
Mr. Doerflinger has testified before Congress, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, the National Institutes of Health, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, and several state legislatures on the way public policy treats human life at its most vulnerable stages. His writings on medical ethics and public policy include contributions to The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, the Hastings Center Report, Duquesne Law Review, Cell Proliferation, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, the Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine (Our Sunday Visitor Press, 1997), the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, and the American Journal of Bioethics. He holds a BA degree and an MA in Divinity from the University of Chicago, and conducted doctoral studies in Theology at that institution and the Catholic University of America.
In January 2009, Mr. Doerflinger became one of the first recipients of the Gerard Health Foundation’s "Life Prize," honoring efforts to awaken the conscience of America to the sanctity of human life. In April 2011, he became the first recipient of the "Evangelium Vitae Medal," awarded annually by the University of Notre Dame’s Fund to Protect Human Life “to honor individuals whose outstanding efforts have served to proclaim the Gospel of Life by steadfastly affirming and defending the sanctity of human life from its earliest stages.”