A jury quickly reached a decision to award teacher Christa Dias damages both punitive and real, incurred after being fired by the Catholic school where she worked.
She was awarded 200,000 by federal jury this week.
The Catholic diocese where she worked found out in 2010 that Ms. Dias had chosen to become pregnant through artificial insemination and promptly terminated her.
A federal jury ruled that the Archdiocese in fact had discriminated against Ms. Dias, before they awarded her the 200.000.
The question to be asked is why is the Catholic Church so inclined to disregard civil and human rights in the face of doctrine. The Bible in fact says "multiply". For years we have heard the Church exhort women to become walking wombs. But when a woman choses, for whatever good or bad reasons, to 'multiply' on her own, immediately the sanctity of the family institution is threatened.
But then, why does church doctrine contradict itself so easily? Because it was never logical, nor magnanimous. It was always strict, and at times irrational.
The unfairness of termination of a woman about to be a mother could possibly strike some as unfair as it should. While the Church says to women who want to abort 'come to church for the church will provide for you and the baby in order to avoid the procedure', they are more than willing to throw out an expecting mother, a single mother that is, to show their increased inflexibility.
What is more interesting is that the Diocese claimed that termination was due to the fact that all employees must strictly adhere to Church principles. But then, Ms. Dias is not even Catholic. Had they bothered to ask, they might have realized that there could have been issues in the future. But then, they would have discriminated her for their hiring practices, if they had refused her employment on the grounds that she was not Catholic.
But that bias did not stop them from doing the immoral: terminating employment at the time of highest financial vulnerability for the mother, and the child.
Op-Ed
Source : NBC news 6.4.13
No comments:
Post a Comment