Posted on 07/23/2009 5:25:46 AM PDT by kellynla
NEW YORK — Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Mount Sinai Hospital on behalf of a Catholic nurse who was forced to participate in a late-term abortion under the threat of disciplinary action, including possible termination and loss of her license. The hospital has known of her religious objections to abortion since 2004.
Hospital administrators told the nurse that the scheduled abortion was an "emergency," though evidence shows otherwise, and insisted moments before the procedure that she assist doctors despite her repeated objections to the procedure, which dismembered a preborn child in the 22nd week of gestation. By federal law, hospitals that receive federal funds cannot force employees to participate in abortion procedures under any circumstances.
"Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs," said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. "Requiring a devout, Catholic nurse to participate in a late-term abortion in order to remain employed is illegal, unethical, and violates her rights of conscience. Federal law requires that employers who receive funding from tax dollars must not compel employees to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs, but this nurse’s objections fell on deaf ears."
"Chasing away workers from the health care field is disastrous health care policy," said Bowman. "An individual’s conscience is likely what brought them to the health care field. Denying or coercing their conscience will likely drive them right out."
Administrators at Mount Sinai Hospital threatened senior nurse Cathy Cenzon-DeCarlo with disciplinary measures if she did not honor a last-minute summons to assist in a scheduled late-term abortion. Despite the fact that the patient was not in crisis at the time of the surgery, the hospital insisted on her participation in the procedure on the grounds that it was an "emergency" even though the procedure was not classified as such.
"Category I" is the classification reserved for "patients requiring immediate surgical intervention for life or limb threatening conditions." The surgery in this case was classified as "Category II," for operations needing to take place within six hours, indicating that the hospital had no reason to insist upon Cenzon-DeCarlo’s assistance in the abortion in order to protect the patient. Plenty of time existed to find a different nurse to assist, especially since evidence indicates that the patient’s condition did not rise even to a Category II. In fact, Cenzon-DeCarlo observed no indications that the abortion was a medical emergency while in the operating room.
ADF attorneys filed the complaint in Cenzon-DeCarlo v. The Mount Sinai Hospital with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. They are also requesting a preliminary injunction that would order the hospital to honor Cenzon-DeCarlo’s religious objection against assisting in abortion and refrain from retaliation against her while the case moves forward. New York ADF-allied attorneys Joseph Ruta and Piero Tozzi are serving as local counsel in the case.
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What a horrific story, that is becoming more common as the Fascists take further steps to murder more and more children.
Absolutely horrible.
Personally, I think the nurse should find another hospital to work at as this goes through.
I would NOT take this statement as fact in regards to the nurse being a DEVOUT roman catholic (as it infers), but will reserve judgment.
It would be very painful for me to imagine any DEVOUT roman catholic will engage in murdering a preborn baby despite the threat of termination of employment.
She should have walked out of the hospital and straight to the phone to call ADF. No one could “force” her into being an accomplice to the murder of that child. There is a time for choosing for each of us when confronted with evil.
Maybe the solution is for all devout Catholics...or anyone who strongly opposes abortion...make it a point to work only in Catholic hospitals and let the atheists,Unitarian/Universalists,Episcopalians and “Reform” Jews work in the others.
I am going to point out that the nurse in question must not have been too devout. When it came down to her job or her convictions, she chose her job.
I am not pointing a finger and going “tsk, tsk”, because I have never been in that position, since I became a Christian. My point is that it is a rough path God has set us upon, and some hard decisions have to be made along the way.
Lord knows that I have a hard enough time living the way I am supposed to. I would like to think that my convictions are such that I would make the right choice in such a situation and worldly consequences be damned. I honestly won’t know until/if such happens.
Where I come from, we capitalize Roman Catholic.
That was my first thought also. I would have just said “I quit” and walked out. The medical field is one that is still doing ok employment-wise.
Thank you for bringing up a subtle point. In this particular case, I intentionally did NOT want to refer to this nurse as Roman Catholic, so she got the roman catholic, for now.
You just contradicted yourself.
This is what they will do. They will force you to choose between your conscience and your job.
This is not just unjust coercion. This is fascism.
Let's just give her the “benefit of the doubt”, thank you.
And "Roman Catholic" is STILL capitalized.
Lets stick to the issue; there are hospitals out there who are FORCING employees, against their will to engage in ABORTIONS or risk losing their jobs! ABORTIONS AND DEAD BABIES ARE THE ISSUE! Not how "devout" a Catholic a particular person is.
And the killing of near term babies isn’t the end goal,
it’s just one of the paving stones to hell.
The end goal is the total devaluation of human life.
The end goal is complete subjugation to the state.
Well my friend, here on FR everyone's opinions count, as far as I know.
About the judging part ... we, average citizens in the US do just that Monday to Friday, every week, in the jury box.
I can certainly judge her action (but not her soul) and give her a score of whether she deserves to be called a Roman Catholic, or simply a roman catholic (to me at least). Others don't have to agree.
Keeping quiet is not my strong suit (see my tag line) :-D
I agree. I cannot be forced to do something immoral. I would walk away from my job and license in a heartbeat before I would have anything to do with an abortion
That being said, some people are more susceptible to coercion and intimidation. No one should be put in the place of choosing morality or their livlihood. Knowing the proabortion faction, I suspect this nurse was deliberately targeted for her pro life views.
you first try to justify not capitalizing Roman Catholic and then you try to make an issue of this person's “devoutness”
I hate repeating myself but the issue here is ABORTION and hospitals FORCING employees to engage in ABORTIONS against their will or face losing their job.
BTW, while YOU are on the subject of "devout Catholics"; are you a "devout Catholic?"
Satanic tactics.
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