We New Yorkers have a tendency to get all high and mighty over our state's supposed uber-progressiveness. And then reality slaps us with some nonsense like this:
The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed an official complaint to the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of a Queens teacher who says she was fired because she got pregnant out of wedlock.St. Rose of Lima School terminated Michelle McCusker's contract last month, after she told school officials she was pregnant.
Despite the fact that McCusker was praised by the principal for her “high degree of professionalism,” the Brooklyn Diocese says that the teacher didn’t “follow the principles contained in the teachers' personnel handbook.” The book requires that teachers adhere to the Catholic faith by their words and actions. Translation: Unauthorized fucking will get you fired.
McCusker said at a press conference yesterday, “I also don't understand how a religion that prides itself on being forgiving and on valuing life could terminate me because I'm pregnant and choosing to have this baby.”
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This sounds like a joke. They don't allow abortion, but will punish you for carrying the pregnancy to term.
The ACLU and its child organizations seem to have become a mass of contradictions over the years. Here we have an organization, the school, that is championing diversity and the ACLU wants to sue it to be less diverse. On what grounds though? The employee entered into a working relationship and knew in advance the conditions attached to her employment. She violated those conditions. The consequences are fair and legal.
They are just holding her to the terms of her contract. They are not punishing her for carrying the child to term, but for violating her code of conduct, that she knew about in advance.
Legal wise, they "can" probably discriminate like this. However, I think the headline would read better this way:
"Catholic school fires teacher for refusing to get secret abortion."
Seems to sum up the totality of the hypocracy.
i was not exactly unhappy when i saw this. i believe that sex out of wedlock is wrong (not for religous purposes) so she deserved to get fired for it. and as other ppl said,it was the school's policy. i dont think it was so much not getting an abortion. why would they fire her for being pregnant if she were married?
Ms. McCusker is right on. Although the school is being consistent about sexual ethics, the message they're sending to their female students is deplorable.
Women shouldn't have to make pregnancy decisions under this kind of baby-or-job duress. Shame on them.
As someone who is interested in seeing abortion rates decline, this pains me. The church still doesn't get it -- if fetal life is a value, we must do everything we can to do away with the stigma of a pregnancy outside of marriage. The greater the social repercussions of unwed motherhood, the greater the incentive for abortion. This is stupefying, and more to the point, from a consistent-life standpoint, it's counterproductive.
I couldn't agree more Hugo. Well said.
I think the femenist question here revolves around a few key unknowns. Is the termination due to having sex out of wedlock or carrying a child? Would a male teacher have been fired for the same offense?
okay... i'm having trouble with some of the comments here...
first off, how is the NYCLU "[suing the school] to be less diverse"? that argument doesn't make sense to me...
neither does the argument that the school fired McCusker for not having an abortion.
it seems pretty clear to me that the school is firing her for having had sex out of wedlock (of which the child is evidence)... of course, if she had had an abortion in secret, she would have been in the clear, but not because she was in accordance with the school's priciples, but rather because she would have been keeping a secret from the school. obviously, since she decided to carry the child to term, she didn't really have the option to lie.
a man would have had that option... in fact, a man would have had the option to just walk away from a lot of parental responsibility without a lot of fuss as well and probably could have kept it all from the schools awareness.
if, on the other hand, a man wanted to be a part of his child's life and also chose to tell the school, he probably would have faced the same response. however, since he wouldn't be getting pregnant, he still could have avoided the truth.
crazy world.