I found the story on Slate, who got it from a couple of
other bloggers, but they’re linking to the agencies actually involved in the
lawsuit, which seems like adequate confirmation. Apparently a woman named Sara
Hellwege, a nurse-midwife, applied for a job at the Tampa Family Health
Centers, during which process she listed membership in an anti-contraception
group on her resume. When asked about this, Hellwege admitted that she would
refuse to prescribe birth control pills to anyone. The Centers told her that
this was an important part of the job, and they needed someone who would be
willing to complete those duties. As a result, Hellwege and her right-wing
backers are now suing the health centers, claiming that this represents
religious discrimination…
It would be tedious, at best, to explain all of the ways in
which this is wrong, but we can probably start with the actual laws. The health
center did not ask Ms. Hellwege what religion she practices, and then refuse to
hire her on that basis; they asked her if she would be willing to perform the
duties assigned to the position for which they were hiring. Membership in a
secular organization (the anti-contraception group in question has no religious
affiliation) does not indicate any particular personal belief, but even if it
did the health center didn’t ask Ms. Hellwege if she belonged to such a group,
she told them. Moreover, even then the health center did not decline to hire
her because she belonged to a group of far-right wing nuts; they declined to
hire her because she refused to do the job…
It’s also worth noting that this case makes no sense as an
Equal Opportunity Employment complaint under Title VII, because the same law
makes exceptions for cases where making accommodations would cause the employer
“undue hardship” – which, I think we can agree, forcing a family planning
center to hire anyone who will prevent clients from planning their families definitely
would. One has to wonder how any reasonable person would have applied for a job
they would be unwilling to do in the first place; it sounds completely insane.
Unless the whole point of the exercise was always the lawsuit, and not the job…
The clue here is that both Ms. Hellwege and her
anti-conception backers keep throwing the word “abortion” around, both in their
communications and in the court documents. Birth control pills have nothing to
do with abortion; they are part of the class of contraceptives called “non-barrier
methods,” and prevent someone from becoming pregnant in the first place. But it’s
hard to get people worked up about contraception, either in the legislature or
the courts, while abortion is still an emotional issue for much of the country…
As I mentioned at the top of this post, the business
implications are appalling. Imagine a world in which anyone who wants to can
apply for a job with your company and then demand that you hire them and let
them tell you and your clients how to live their lives or else they will sue
you for millions. No matter what your position on birth control or abortion
might be, there’s no way to cast this as anything other than a sleazy attempt
to use a law intended to protect religious freedom in the workplace to push a
political agenda onto everyone else. Let’s just hope this gets slapped down by
the court before it takes out whatever is left of Business in America…
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