Politics
Wednesday February 22, 2006
See today's LifeSiteNews stories
Firing of Unwed Pregnant Teacher from Catholic School Opposed by Pro-Life Group
By Terry Vanderheyden
NEW YORK, February 22, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An unwed pre-school teacher fired from a Queens, New York, Catholic school for becoming pregnant has the backing of a pro-life group in a legal suit against the diocese.
Feminists for Life supports the lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Michelle McCusker, 26, who was fired in October after only one month on the job. “Feminists for Life supports the NYCLU in protecting women from pregnancy discrimination because it pits a woman against her own child by forcing her to choose between her career and her pregnancy, and because it effectively discriminates against female employees by providing a different standard as compared to similarly situated male employees,” the group said in a release.
According to court documents, Michelle McCusker was hired to teach pre-kindergartners at the St. Rose of Lima School in Rockaway Beach on September 7, 2005. Her teaching contract was to last for one year, but a month after school began, McCusker informed the school’s principal that she was pregnant and planned to have the child. Two days later, the principal told McCusker that she was being terminated because she violated the school’s religious principles by becoming pregnant while unmarried, even though she conceived before she was hired. The school principal said she could work only until the end of October. McCusker said she is “devastated.”
“The school requires its teachers to convey the faith, to convey the gospel values and Christian traditions of the Catholic faith,” argued Diocese of Brooklyn spokesman Frank DeRosa, according to ABC News coverage.
“When an employer fires a woman for carrying a child to term, they send an unintended message: An abortion will cover up the sex,” said Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life. “The compassionate response to a woman who is carrying a child should be to ask if she needs help, rather than cause a crisis for her by taking her career, her income, and the obstetric/prenatal care that is critical to the health and well being of both mother and unborn child. Women deserve better.”
Feminists for Life believes that no employer should put a woman in a situation where she has to choose between sacrificing her education or career plans and sacrificing her children. According to the Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research arm, a lack of practical resources and emotional support are the primary overarching reasons that drive women to abortion.
See ABC News coverage:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1641467&page=1
Back to TopSHARE THIS STORY: E-mail Print Newsvine Digg Reddit Del.icio.us Facebook
Latest Headlines
- Texas Bishop Repents Publicly for Catholic Hospital Which Was Doing Sterilizations
- Poll Shows a Solid Majority of Canadians Want Legal Protection for Unborn Children
- Interview: Bishop Explains Why a Bishop "Would Consider It a Privilege to Die to End to Abortion"
- Christian-Founded Dating Website eHarmony Forced to Cater to Homosexuals
- Italian Government Must Act Fast to Define Food and Hydration as a Human Right to Save Eluana: Prominent Italian Lawyer
- Brazilian Christian Censored and Fined for Making "Homophobic" Remarks in Book
- Grandmother's Account of Traumatizing Experience with Abortion Moves Jamaican Parliamentarians to Tears
- Bush Pushes Ahead with Regulations to Protect Doctors’ Conscience Rights
- Levant Acquitted after Republishing Letter by Pastor Previously Found to Be “Hate Speech”
- The Death of Catholic Culture and the Election of Barack Obama
- Brazilian Psychologists Prohibited from Helping Catholic Church Screen Out Homosexual Priesthood Candidates
- Letters to the Editor for Friday, November 21, 2008
- US Election Message to Catholic Bishops Part III: The Broken Window Strategy
Most Read this Week
- Italian Nuns Refuse to Kill Eluana
- Lawsuits Proliferate Demanding Proof of Obama's Natural-Born Citizenship before Electoral Vote Count
- Christian Prayer Group Sexually and Physically Assaulted by Homosexual Mob
- Mormons, Knights of Columbus Face Chilling Threats and More Vandalism for Prop. 8 Support
- Vatican Cardinal: "A New World Order is Gaining Ground"
- The Coming "War" Between the Obama Administration and the Catholic Church
- Arnold Schwarzenegger's Wife: I'm "a Catholic in Good Standing" But Also Pro-abortion and Pro-Homosexual
- Obama Fortifies Administration with Team of Anti-Life, Anti-family Radicals
- Martin Luther King's Niece: Obama Election Heals "White Guilt" at the Cost of Life and Family
- Cardinal Stafford: Obama’s Anti-life Policies are “Aggressive, Disruptive, and Apocalyptic”
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.