Dispute over Ind. teacher’s firing should set up showdown over religious, reproductive rights

[rug]

By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, April 25, 3:16 PM

INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana teacher who says she was fired from a Roman Catholic school for using in vitro fertilization to try to get pregnant is suing in a case that could set up a legal showdown over reproductive and religious rights.

Emily Herx’s lawsuit accuses the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend and St. Vincent de Paul school in Fort Wayne of discrimination for her firing last June. Herx, 31, of Hoagland, Ind., says that the church pastor told her she was a “grave, immoral sinner” and that a scandal would erupt if anyone learned she had undergone in vitro fertilization, or IVF.

The Roman Catholic Church shuns IVF, which involves mixing egg and sperm in a laboratory dish and transferring a resulting embryo into the womb. Herx said she was fired despite exemplary performance reviews in her eight years as a language arts teacher.

Legal experts say Herx’s case illustrates a murky area in the debate over separation of church and state that even the U.S. Supreme Court has failed to clearly address.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/dispute-over-ind-teachers-firing-should-set-up-showdown-over-religious-reproductive-rights/2012/04/25/gIQAbHwJhT_story.html

[Jim__]

1. I hope the teacher wins - n/t.

[darkstar3]

4. As do I.

[orwell]

2. Let me guess...

a St. Vincent de Paul's sweater has a big scarlet letter on the front.

Welcome to the Inquisition II...

[cbayer]

3. This may be the case that helps define the "ministerial exception".

Article says that IVF is a problem for the RCC because they only sanction pregnancy through marital sex and their objection to the destruction of fertilized eggs. I wasn't aware of that.

[47of74]

5. Every time I read about something like this...

...I need to get out my ol' stress relief poster;