Right of Medical Conscience to Go to Court

In Louisiana, a nurse who was demoted for refusing to participate in dispensing the morning after pill due to religious objections, has won the right from the state supreme court to sue her former employer for religious discrimination. From the story:

The Louisiana Supreme Court has declined to hear a hospital’s appeal in a case brought by a nurse who claims she was demoted after she refused to dispense the “morning-after” pill. A state judge refused in 2007 to throw out Toni Lemly’s lawsuit against St. Tammany Parish Hospital. The hospital appealed, but the Supreme Court declined Friday to review the judge’s ruling.

The hospital hired Lemly in 2003 to work in its Community Wellness Center. Several months later, the hospital contracted with the state to provide counseling to patients about emergency contraception. The hospital offered Lemly a part-time position after she objected to distributing the morning-after pill, but she turned down the offer and sued, alleging religious discrimination. A lawyer for Lemly says the Supreme Court’s decision clears the way for a trial.

I think the key to this case is that the hospital changed Lemly’s job description from working in wellness—which is consistent with a pro life religious belief—to forcing her into a position for which she had never signed on, thereby requiring her to choose between her beliefs and her work.

This occurred back in 2005 before the Bush conscience clause was in effect. Today, this nurse would be protected. Tomorrow, when and if Obama actually revokes the Bush policy, who knows?

If we are going to live in a morally and culturally polyglot society, people like Lemly will have to be reasonably accommodated. Otherwise, many good medical professionals will be driven out of medicine—as some have already called for—and many institutions may close. Surely, we can all just get along?