The Washington Post reported last week:
Twelve nurses who sued one of the state’s largest hospitals after claiming they were forced to assist in abortions over their religious and moral objections reached a deal Thursday with their employer in federal court.
Under the agreement, 12 nurses in the same-day surgery unit of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey can remain in their current positions and not be compelled to assist in any part of an abortion procedure. The nurses must only help in a life-threatening emergency if no other non-objecting staff members are available and only until which time one can be brought in to relieve them, according to the agreement.
I want to highlight the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reaction to the settlement:
The ACLU, which was not party to the suit, said it was concerned about a growing number of similar cases around the country as what the organization sees as an effort to use religion to discriminate in a health care context.
“No one should ever have to worry about facing discrimination when they check into the hospital,” said Brigitte Amiri, an attorney with the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project. “No woman should have to fear that medical staff will place ideology over duty or deny her care.”
The ACLU’s reaction is disturbing and illustrative of the moral darkness reigning within their organization. Why? Because they equate the exercise of conscience with adherence to an ideology, presumably something that they are free from themselves.
Conscience is not ideology. Conscience is the medium through which human beings perceive and acknowledge the imperatives of the divine, eternal moral law. No human agency can force people to act against their conscience. No one should be penalized in their employment for having exercised their right conscience. As the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council observed:
The social nature of man, however, itself requires that he should give external expression to his internal acts of religion: that he should share with others in matters religious; that he should profess his religion in community. Injury therefore is done to the human person and to the very order established by God for human life, if the free exercise of religion is denied in society, provided just public order is observed. – Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae
By equating conscience with ideology, the ACLU, which pretends to be the defender of civil freedoms and rights, has instead embraced a totalitarian principle to be imposed upon the consciences of Christian people under cover of law. The ACLU’s position, then, represents a defense of the state’s power to coerce our consciences: it is the beginning of all tyranny.
Along with Planned Parenthood, the ACLU is yet another malignant organization our country can do without. Though I can only speak for myself, I lend my voice to a number of others and I am confident that we can state that we will not sacrifice our hard-earned rights over the ACLU’s altar of tyranny.