Emily Herx fired for In Vitro Proceedure from Catholic School; Freedom of Employment Trumps Religion
Timothy Birdnow
The liberal War on Christianity continues with this story kindly presented by the Huffington Post; a Catholic school teacher was sacked for attempting to get pregnant using in-vitro fertilization techniques, and is suing the diocese of Ft. Wayne/South Bend Indiana.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/catholic-school-ivf_n_1453524.html?1335386848&icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-nb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D155337
In-Vitro fertilzation is banned by the Catholic Church, because it results in the spontaneous abortion of many fertilized embryos in the process. In the in-vitro process a clutch of eggs from the woman is mixed with a sample of the man's sperm in a laboratory (the so-called test-tube babies) and the fertilized embryos are then inserted in the woman's womb, with the hopes that one or more will attach to the walls and begin growing. Often this leads to multiple births, but just as often it leads to nothing happening, as none of the fertilized eggs can find a toehold in the mother and are spontaneously aborted. Since the Catholic Church teaches that life begins at conception it means the deaths of numerous nascent human beings. As a result, the Church maintains a ban on the proceedure.
Huffpo naturally presents the story with the fired teacher - Emily Herx - as the victim of a medieval institution hostile to women.
But since when does a person's right to employment trump one of the enumerated rights of the Constitution? The Constitution states quite plainly "Congress shall make no law... Concerning the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Nowhere is employment mentioned in the Constitution, despite the wishes of the Progressive wing of America; a 'right to work" simply does not exist except as infered (much like the right to an abortion was infered from an infered right to privacy.)
So sorry, but enumerated trumps infered, or should.
Catholic schools exist to teach religion to their students. If parents want to expose their children to a secular environment or a multiplicity of viewpoints they are entirely free to send their kids to the public schools, which are supported by property taxes socked to property owners, some of whom never benefit from this "service" (I myself never attended a public school and do not have children, yet pay handsomely for that particular honor anyway.) Parents choose to send their children to a religious school despite greater costs to themselves to expose them to the particular religious beliefs of their faith. As a result, the school has every right to impose certain standards on their teachers, standards that conform to the tenets of their faith.
A Catholic school has every right to refuse employment to someone who is openly in violation of those tenets. An openly homosexual person, for instance, or a person who uses drugs, or an open advocate of abortion would all be people they could refuse to employ. Had Emily Herx done this very quietly I imagine nothing would have been said; I suspect she made a big point of telling everyone she was openly violating Church teaching. What were they supposed to do?
The Liberals keep trying to gin up this "war on women" scenario during this election cycle to frighten women into supporting Barack Obama, and this is but another flaccid attempt to stoke the fires of the sexual divide.
What does the Constitution say on freedom of religion? Let's look at the actual language:
http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/36cons04.html
"ARTICLE 124. In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church is separated from the state, and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda is recognized for all citizens."
End quote.
As you can see, there is separation of Church and State, and the school from the Church, so the Church has absolutely no right to impose it's morality on any employee working in a school run by said Church.
Oh, wait; that's the Soviet Constitution of 1936, the one promoted by Joseph Stalin.
The actual clause we are looking for is the Establishment Clause:
"Congress shall make no law concerning the establishment of Religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Thomas Jefferson described that as a "wall of separation" between Church and State in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Church. He was trying to reassure the devout folks at Danbury that the new U.S. government would not be able to come and take away their right to educate their children as they saw fit, or to oppress their freedom of religion in any other way. It is a negative right, one of those that Barack Obama finds so offensive; it restricts what government can do, not what the churches can do.
And again, there is no fundamental right to employment enumerated in the Constitution. Well, it's there in that 1936 document:
"ARTICLE 118. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to work, that is, are guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance With its quantity and quality.
The right to work is ensured by the socialist organization of the national economy, the steady growth of the productive forces of Soviet society, the elimination of the possibility of economic crises, and the abolition of unemployment.
ARTICLE 119. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to rest and leisure. The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the reduction of the working day to seven hours for the overwhelming majority of the workers, the institution of annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people."
End excerpt.
America is increasingly falling into line with the Soviet Constitution, and many Americans actually seem to confuse this document with our own founding charter.
But we shouldn't be surprised; that is the work of the public schools, of the vaunted free education bequethed to us by John Dewey. After all, it states quite plainly in the Constitution:
"ARTICLE 121. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to education. This right is ensured by universal, compulsory elementary education; by education, including higher education, being free of charge; by the system of state stipends for the overwhelming majority of students in the universities and colleges; by instruction in schools being conducted in the native Ianguage, and by the organization in the factories, state farms, machine and tractor stations and collective farms of free vocational, technical and agronomic training for the working people."
End excerpt.
Golly; who could argue with that?
"
The liberal War on Christianity continues with this story kindly presented by the Huffington Post; a Catholic school teacher was sacked for attempting to get pregnant using in-vitro fertilization techniques, and is suing the diocese of Ft. Wayne/South Bend Indiana.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/catholic-school-ivf_n_1453524.html?1335386848&icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-nb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D155337
In-Vitro fertilzation is banned by the Catholic Church, because it results in the spontaneous abortion of many fertilized embryos in the process. In the in-vitro process a clutch of eggs from the woman is mixed with a sample of the man's sperm in a laboratory (the so-called test-tube babies) and the fertilized embryos are then inserted in the woman's womb, with the hopes that one or more will attach to the walls and begin growing. Often this leads to multiple births, but just as often it leads to nothing happening, as none of the fertilized eggs can find a toehold in the mother and are spontaneously aborted. Since the Catholic Church teaches that life begins at conception it means the deaths of numerous nascent human beings. As a result, the Church maintains a ban on the proceedure.
Huffpo naturally presents the story with the fired teacher - Emily Herx - as the victim of a medieval institution hostile to women.
But since when does a person's right to employment trump one of the enumerated rights of the Constitution? The Constitution states quite plainly "Congress shall make no law... Concerning the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Nowhere is employment mentioned in the Constitution, despite the wishes of the Progressive wing of America; a 'right to work" simply does not exist except as infered (much like the right to an abortion was infered from an infered right to privacy.)
So sorry, but enumerated trumps infered, or should.
Catholic schools exist to teach religion to their students. If parents want to expose their children to a secular environment or a multiplicity of viewpoints they are entirely free to send their kids to the public schools, which are supported by property taxes socked to property owners, some of whom never benefit from this "service" (I myself never attended a public school and do not have children, yet pay handsomely for that particular honor anyway.) Parents choose to send their children to a religious school despite greater costs to themselves to expose them to the particular religious beliefs of their faith. As a result, the school has every right to impose certain standards on their teachers, standards that conform to the tenets of their faith.
A Catholic school has every right to refuse employment to someone who is openly in violation of those tenets. An openly homosexual person, for instance, or a person who uses drugs, or an open advocate of abortion would all be people they could refuse to employ. Had Emily Herx done this very quietly I imagine nothing would have been said; I suspect she made a big point of telling everyone she was openly violating Church teaching. What were they supposed to do?
The Liberals keep trying to gin up this "war on women" scenario during this election cycle to frighten women into supporting Barack Obama, and this is but another flaccid attempt to stoke the fires of the sexual divide.
What does the Constitution say on freedom of religion? Let's look at the actual language:
http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/36cons04.html
"ARTICLE 124. In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church is separated from the state, and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda is recognized for all citizens."
End quote.
As you can see, there is separation of Church and State, and the school from the Church, so the Church has absolutely no right to impose it's morality on any employee working in a school run by said Church.
Oh, wait; that's the Soviet Constitution of 1936, the one promoted by Joseph Stalin.
The actual clause we are looking for is the Establishment Clause:
"Congress shall make no law concerning the establishment of Religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Thomas Jefferson described that as a "wall of separation" between Church and State in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Church. He was trying to reassure the devout folks at Danbury that the new U.S. government would not be able to come and take away their right to educate their children as they saw fit, or to oppress their freedom of religion in any other way. It is a negative right, one of those that Barack Obama finds so offensive; it restricts what government can do, not what the churches can do.
And again, there is no fundamental right to employment enumerated in the Constitution. Well, it's there in that 1936 document:
"ARTICLE 118. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to work, that is, are guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance With its quantity and quality.
The right to work is ensured by the socialist organization of the national economy, the steady growth of the productive forces of Soviet society, the elimination of the possibility of economic crises, and the abolition of unemployment.
ARTICLE 119. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to rest and leisure. The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the reduction of the working day to seven hours for the overwhelming majority of the workers, the institution of annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people."
End excerpt.
America is increasingly falling into line with the Soviet Constitution, and many Americans actually seem to confuse this document with our own founding charter.
But we shouldn't be surprised; that is the work of the public schools, of the vaunted free education bequethed to us by John Dewey. After all, it states quite plainly in the Constitution:
"ARTICLE 121. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to education. This right is ensured by universal, compulsory elementary education; by education, including higher education, being free of charge; by the system of state stipends for the overwhelming majority of students in the universities and colleges; by instruction in schools being conducted in the native Ianguage, and by the organization in the factories, state farms, machine and tractor stations and collective farms of free vocational, technical and agronomic training for the working people."
End excerpt.
Golly; who could argue with that?
"
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 5:34 AM
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