By Dave Andrusko
Lorna Jose Mendoza
It might be a pro-life medical professional’s worse nightmare: forced to assist in an abortion, or refuse and face the consequences–losing her job.
Such is the scenario laid out by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) for Lorna Jose Mendoza, a nurse who works at a hospital run by University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
On behalf of Mendoza and eleven other nurses ADF filed suit today against the hospital, citing both state and federal laws against forcing medical personnel to assist in abortions against their religious and moral objections.
“Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal.”
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, on behalf of the nurses who “possess strongly held religious and moral beliefs that she may not participate in the process of an abortion that causes the death of a preborn child,” Bowman said.
A hospital spokesman told Fox News they were not aware of the lawsuit and would not be able to provide comment.
According to Bowman, a change in hospital policy came “out of the blue.” He told Fox News that up until a few weeks ago the hospital “had been performing abortions for decades without forcing nurses to violate their religious beliefs.”
However, according to ADF, in September, the hospital initiated a policy change and began telling Same Day Surgery Unit nurses that they must assist abortions. The following month hospital imposed the policy on the nurses “and repeatedly threatened that they must assist abortions or be terminated.”
“When one nurse objected to assisting abortions on the grounds of her religious beliefs, a supervisor responded that UMDNJ has ‘no regard for religious beliefs’ of nurses who object to participating in abortions,” according to ADF.
The “training” was not merely observing. “The training involves actually assisting surgical abortions, which the nurses believe is, in the words of the U.S. Supreme Court, ‘an act of violence against innocent human life,’” ADF said.
Timing is of the essence.
“If the court does not issue an order requested by ADF attorneys that stops the training sessions while the lawsuit moves forward, the nurses and their colleagues will continue to be scheduled one by one to undergo the training and then to assist abortions on a regular basis.”
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