In today's "WTF" news, an Indiana teacher is speaking out against a Catholic school that fired her after she underwent in vitro fertility treatments. Emily Herx was let go in June over her efforts to conceive and now she's suing her former place of work in a case that could set a precedent for religious educational institutions around the world.
Herx's lawsuit states that the church pastor at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Schoo__l called her a "grave immoral sinner"__ and that a scandal would erupt if anyone had learned of her decision to use IVF. Though Herx says she had glowing performance reviews throughout her eight years at the school, they still fired her, citing the Catholic belief that IVF kills embryos and by extension, is morally wrong.
But you know what makes the whole thing even more unbelievable? Herx, who has a diagnosed fertility issue, previously asked to use sick days in order to undergo the treatment and school officials didn't indicate any problem with it until much later. How sketchy is that? In their defense, the school is saying that Herx signed a contract which obligated her to comply with Catholic faith.
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The whole case has me so angry, I don't even know where to begin! I mean I can't believe that discrimination like this is still occurring in 2012, when the very same technology that allows for IVF is at the forefront of so many fields, medical and otherwise. What gives the school the right to dictate what Herx can and cannot do with her body just because she is an employee? And to let her go over the simple fact that she wants a family–something almost everybody (including those at the school) also wants or already has–is just downright ridiculous and unjust! Since when is infertility cause for firing?
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Not to mention that Herx isn't even a religion teacher–her subject is language arts! So why does she need to comply by beliefs that she doesn't even preach? Besides, she's not just some unruly employee- –she's a woman trying to overcome a diagnosed fertility condition that she has absolutely no control over. I think anyone who faults her for that is the real "immoral" person in this case.
What do you think of the case?
Image via ABC
