By Elaine Magliaro

Earlier this week, I published a post about Sara Hellwege, the pro-life nurse-midwife who is suing Tampa Family Health Centers (TFHC). TFHC refused to hire Hellwege because she said that she would not prescribe hormonal contraceptives to patients. In other words, Hellwege informed TFHC that she would not perform one of the requirements of the job for which she applying! But Hellwege may have an ulterior motive for what she is doing. Read on…

Rob Boston of Americans United for Separartion of Church and State wrote about Hellwege’s case in his article Access Denied: The Religious Right Opens Up A New Front On Its War Against Birth Control.

Boston:

Hormonal contraceptives include some of the most common types – birth control pills, patches, implants and vaginal rings. TFHC serves a primarily low-income population; many of the women who patronize the clinic come there for birth control. And if Hellwege had been on duty, they would not have been able to get most forms of it.

In short, Hellwege admitted upfront that she was not willing to do a good percentage of this job. The clinic, quite naturally, declined to hire her because she doesn’t actually want to perform many of the tasks they need done. According to Hellwege and her attorneys at the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), she is a victim of religious discrimination!

Boston said that the ADF is “playing hardball.” He noted that TFHC “is supported in part by federal funding.” He reported that “Hellwege and the ADF are seeking $400,000 in damages for her.” He added that Hellwege and ADF want TFHC to be fined—and to lose all of its public funding. Losing public funding, Boston said “would essentially cripple the facility and most likely end in its being shuttered…” Boston believes this is most likely “what Hellwege and the ADF are really after here.”

In her Care2 article titled The Next Phase of the Birth Control War: Religious Discrimination Lawsuits, Robin Marty wrote the following:

As more states push bills to strip family planning funding from Planned Parenthoods, or relocate funding so that Planned Parenthood affiliates are last in line, other clinics that provide care to low-income and uninsured residents will be forced to shoulder the burden of reproductive health care services, especially when it comes to offering birth control.

Yet, as a case in Florida shows us, those clinics are now being drawn into the war on contraception thanks to “pro-life” medical specialists who are seeking positions within those networks with absolutely no intention of providing the full range of services the clinics were set up to offer. And sadly, refusing to hire these people won’t work as then you’d be facing a discrimination lawsuit.

Marty was referring to Sara Hellwege’s lawsuit—which accuses TFHC of religious discrimination—and of “violating both state and federal laws that protect medical professionals from being forced to participate in abortions.” Marty wrote, “By sending in applicants that have no intention of actually distributing the most effective forms of birth control (and to be clear, a clinic accepting Title X funds cannot offer abortion), contraception opponents then cut off access for the most impoverished populations.” She added that “it would be a massive hardship to get to a different clinic in order to fill a prescription, making it that much more difficult for a person on a low income to prevent pregnancy.”

Marty said that Hellwege’s case “is a win/win for social conservatives.” She explained why she believes this to be true:

If Hellweg is hired, less people get access to contraception. If she is not, they sue the center for discrimination. Even if they don’t win the lawsuit, they have drained the clinic of much needed money while it fights the accusations in court, and they have an example to use to frighten similar federally funded health centers with the same action. If anti-abortion groups do win, the clinic will likely run out of financial resources and leave a gaping hole in care for the city’s underserved population. It’s a hole that no doubt a religious-based clinic would be more than willing to step in and fill, probably while also withholding contraception.

SOURCES

Pro-Life Nurse-Midwife Sues Tampa Family Health Centers for Not Hiring Her after She Said She Wouldn’t Prescribe “Hormonal” Contraception (Flowers for Socrates)

Access Denied: The Religious Right Opens Up A New Front On Its War Against Birth Control (Americans United for Separation of Church and State)

The Next Phase of the Birth Control War: Religious Discrimination Lawsuits (Care2)