Abortion Advocates want Nurses Forced to Help Kill Unborn

                                                                       Story taken from
                                                                      http://www.wnd.com



             The radical agenda being pursued across the United States now in support of unlimited abortion is taking its toll on individual rights – and the newest battleground is a New Jersey hospital that is trying to require nurses to help kill the unborn despite both state and federal prohibitions.


That's according to Alan Sears, an executive with the Alliance Defense Fund, which has gone to court to obtain an order halting the hospital's plans for now.

"Cases like this are increasingly common in the U.S., as the battle over abortion spurs attacks on rights of individual conscience," he penned in a website column posted by the ADF. "ADF is involved in a similar lawsuit in New York State court."

The issue got the attention of U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.M., just yesterday.

"We're talking about coercion here," he told Fox News & Commentary. "This is an outrage – to coerce nurses or any health care professional to be involved either pre-op or during the commission of an abortion is against federal and state law."

The ADF earlier highlighted that circumstance in its court filing successfully seeking an order halting the action until arguments can be heard.

"Federal law, for instance, prohibits hospitals that receive certain federal funds – UMDNJ receives approximately $60 million such funds annually – from forcing employees to assist with abortions," Sears noted. "And New Jersey law specifically states that 'No person shall be required to perform or assist in the performance of an abortion or sterilization.'"

ADF explained that the fight is over a decision by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey to require nurses in the Same Day Surgery Unit to be trained in and assist in abortions – no matter their religious beliefs.

The ADF said the hospital has threatened the nurses with termination if they refuse, even though they consider abortion, as the U.S. Supreme Court wrote, "an act of violence against innocent human life."

The ADF filed its lawsuit Oct. 31, obtaining an injunction with another court hearing scheduled later.

"No [fewer] than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since [this] policy change," said ADF legal counsel Matt Bowman. "That is flatly illegal."

Smith held a news conference yesterday outside the hospital and said, "Because the nurses recognize the innate value and dignity and preciousness of the child in the womb and have refused to participate or be complicit in an act of violence against a vulnerable child, they are punished."

Bowman told Fox that the hospital's "extreme level of arrogance" deserves to be met with the withholding of the federal funding.

"It brings enormous dishonor to the hospital to so callously treat its nurses as they are doing," Smith told Fox.

The order halting the hospital's demands came from Judge Jose Linares, who noted that the hospital had agreed to the restraints, and the issue will be argued in a hearing scheduled Thursday.

Linares said the defendants were ordered not to require "the named plaintiffs from undergoing any training, procedures or performances relating to abortions pending the court's determination on the merits."

Further, he ordered that the hospital could not discriminate "in the employment, promotion, or termination of employment of, or in the extension of staff or other privileges to the named plaintiffs based on any of the plaintiffs' refusal to undergo training, procedures or performances relating to abortions."

The ADF documented that it was in September when the hospital began a policy change and informed staff members of the Same Day Surgery Unit that they would have to help with abortions. It offered termination from their jobs as the alternative.

One nurse objected to helping with abortions on the grounds of her religious beliefs, but a supervisor responded that the hospital has "no regard for religious beliefs" like those.

The case, being handled locally by ADF attorney Demetrios K. Stratis, is on behalf of Sharon L. Danquah, Beryl Otieno-Ngoje, Jacqueline DeSeo, Marites Linaac, Milagros Mananquil, Julita T. Ching, Cristina Abad, Lorna Jose-Mendoza, Virna Balasa, Ossie Taylor, Ronette Habaradas and Fe Esperanza R. Vinoya.

It names the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey's board of trustees, its members, acting hospital president James Gonzalez and Suzanne Atkin, chief medical officer there, and others.