I feel dizzy and sick from reading this article about a Brooklyn nurse who was strong-armed into assisting with a late term abortion at the risk of losing her job.
Bosses told the weeping Cenzon-DeCarlo the patient was 22 weeks into her pregnancy and had preeclampsia, a condition marked by high blood pressure that can lead to seizures or death if left untreated.
The supervisor “claimed that the mother could die if [Cenzon-DeCarlo] did not assist in the abortion.”
But the nurse, the niece of a Filipino bishop, contends that the patient’s life was not in danger. She argued that the patient was not even on magnesium therapy, a common treatment for preeclampsia, and did not have problems indicating an emergency.
Her pleas were rejected, and instead she was threatened with career-ending charges of insubordination and patient abandonment, according to the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court.
“I emigrated to this country in the belief that here religious freedom is sacred,” Cenzon-DeCarlo said. “Doctors and nurses shouldn’t be forced to abandon their beliefs and participate in abortion in order to keep their jobs.”
Religious freedom only seems to be sacred these days as long it involves “dignified” sati. I have to wonder, if the nurse was falsely led to believe this was a neccessary procedure to save the life of the mother, did the hospital lie to the mother as well, or did the hospital lie for the mother? Either way, it’s simply unacceptable.
Galen Sherwin (the director of the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Rights Project) said,
“The law provides protections for individuals who object to performing abortions, but at the same time, health-care professionals are not permitted to abandon patients.”
What about the baby? Who’s patient was the baby? Why does a woman’s right to an abortion for any reason supersede a fully formed, tiny little person’s right to life? I can’t decide if that’s discrimination based on the age or the residency of the baby. Maybe both.