Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Victory for New Jersey Nurses in conscientious objection to abortion case

Catholic Culture .org report that (T)welve nurses who say that they were told by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey that they had to participate in abortions have successfully negotiated a settlement with their employer. See article
“It is a victory because the hospital finally agreed to obey the law and not force our clients to do any work on abortion cases in violation of their beliefs,” said the nurses’ attorney, Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund. “The hospital agreed not to penalize our clients in any way because they choose to not help abortions, according to their legal rights. The hospital is required to fully staff all abortion cases so that our clients would never be needed for those cases, and the hospital cannot use pro-abortion staff to replace our clients or reduce their hours.”
“The [US district] judge warned the hospital that our clients could return to his court if they were assigned to work abortion cases or if the hospital claims that routine abortions are emergencies,” Bowman added. “We hope that other hospitals will realize that they should agree to obey conscience laws that protect pro-life medical personnel.”
See also National Right to Life Report