Legal team fights hospital’s agenda to schedule nurses to help with abortions
The legal team at the American Center for Law and Justice is fighting on behalf of a hospital nurse who is pro-life, but is facing the threat of being forced to participate in abortion procedures.
“This is the predicament confronting our client, a nurse at Baptist Health Lexington Hospital (BHS Lex) in Kentucky, where institutional ‘policies’ threaten her ability to adhere to her Christian faith,” explained officials at the ACLJ in a report.
“So our client, Judy, a devout Christian and dedicated nurse, requested a religious accommodation to exempt her from assisting in abortion procedures. BHS Lex responded with terms that were unacceptable ‘conditions’ that undermined the very purpose of her request.”
The legal team noted, “While BHS Lex approved Judy’s request on paper, it was conditional and vague. The accommodation referred to subjective criteria such as ‘staffing challenges’ and ’emergent situations.’ These undefined terms effectively leave our client without any assurance that her faith-based convictions will be respected. The hospital’s stance creates a chilling precedent that deeply held religious beliefs – beliefs against taking an innocent human life – may be disregarded at any moment in the name of operational convenience.”
The legal team said the hospital’s conditions are not acceptable, and in fact violate the law.
So it has dispatched a letter requesting clarity in the situation, and if the hospital declines to cooperate, “the ACLJ will not hesitate to take immediate and aggressive legal action, including filing a formal complaint with the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Further, the fight is about more than just one nurse.
“It’s about preserving the rights of all Americans to live and work in accordance with their faith,” the legal team said. “The failure to accommodate religious beliefs not only undermines the rights of individuals like Judy but also poses a threat to the ability of Christian practitioners to work in the healthcare industry altogether. A workplace that disregards conscience rights undermines the principles of mutual respect and religious freedom, which are foundational to our republic.”
The law is on the side of the nurse, the report said.
“The conditions attached to our client’s accommodation blatantly contradict federal and state laws. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and Kentucky’s own legal protections explicitly safeguard employees from discrimination based on their religious beliefs. Additionally, federal conscience protections, such as the Church Amendments, also ensure that no healthcare professional should be coerced into participating in procedures like abortion when doing so would violate their moral or religious convictions,” the ACLJ said.
The ACLJ cited the conclusion that has come from the U.S. Supreme Court, that, “[D]octors need not follow a time-intensive procedure to invoke federal conscience protections. A doctor may simply refuse; federal law protects doctors from repercussions when they have ‘refused’ to participate in an abortion. §300a-7(c)(1). And as the Government states, ‘[h]ospitals must accommodate doctors in emergency rooms no less than in other contexts.'”