The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the University of Vermont Medical Center in December 2020 after a pro-life nurse was allegedly coerced into helping with a 2017 abortion, despite her conscientious objection. At the time, the DOJ alleged that the hospital displayed a "pattern" of discrimination against employees who refused to perform abortions for religious or moral reasons.
On July 30, 2020, the DOJ reversed course by filing a notice of voluntary dismissal in a federal district court.
“It’s plainly political in nature,” said Matthew Clark, senior counsel for digital advocacy at the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) in an interview with CNA. The ACLJ represented the Vermont nurse before the DOJ took up the case. “This has now become an assault on those who are pro-life,” Clark continued.
The nurse who was allegedly coerced into performing an abortion said that in 2017, she was told she would be helping with a miscarriage. When she arrived for the procedure, the doctor told her "Don't hate me," before saying that she would be helping with an abortion. When she stated her objection, the doctor denied her request to be replaced.
“It was a surprise. The nurse was on a list of people who had a conscience objection to abortion, so they [the hospital] knew, the head doctor knew, everybody knew, and could have easily switched somebody out,” Clark told CNA.
“Clearly, it was a discrimination,” Clark said of the nurse allegedly being told to participate in the abortion. “Your boss tells you ‘do x,’ and you say, ‘I have an objection to x, can I not do it?’ And they say ‘no, you have to do x.’ The natural implication of that is that there’s going to be something that follows.”
“This isn’t about abortion access,” he said of the incident. “This is actually about taking away the rights of pro-lifers. There was somebody else who could have stepped in, so this goes beyond being pro-abortion. This is anti-life.”
