Damned if you do, damned if you don't...
Between a rock and a hard place:
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/368121p-313173c.html
"I don't understand how a religion that prides itself on forgiving and on valuing life could terminate me because I'm pregnant and choosing to have this baby," said McCusker, "If I decided to abort the baby, the decision to fire me would not have been made because they would not have known."
Comments anyone?
-Emily
posted by Emily Wynn Strauss at 6:42 AM
2 Comments:
This is a tough call.
1. I think her position as a teacher is what clinches it--she is, as part of her job, meant to serve as a living example of Catholic principles.
2. Saying the policy unfairly discriminates against women is misleading--how many times do they even know that a male teacher has had extramarital sex, and how do we know they *wouldn't* fire him?
3. I do think they're making a mistake in terms of what message they're giving out, since this may lead other women in similar situations to abort.
4. According to Catholic doctrine, you are granted forgiveness *if you are sorry*. Assuming she wishes to cotinue her relationship with the baby's father, she doesn't appear to be sorry, so she can't be forgiven for what she's done.
5. I'm curious to know how they handle violations of other church doctrine--that could be useful in her defense. However, I think her role as a teacher makes this particular kind of violation, the only one I can think of where everyone will know, more worthy of response, given that they want teachers to be role models.
I am certainly willing to be swayed here, but I think the school wasn't wrong. I don't personally agree with Catholic doctrine on the matter of extramarital sex, but looking through their eyes I get why they did it.
7:53 AM, December 01, 2005
Thanks for posting!! =o)
Continuing the Dialog:
1 - oh, certainly, if it's "in the job description" I understand the school's point here... but, I think that there is a lot of room here as to what an "example of Catholic principles" should be...
(IMHO keeping the baby and owning up to her behavior is a lot more godly than secretly having an abortion and hiding what she has done...)
2 - This does unfairly discriminate against women - yes, they may fire a male teacher if they find out he had extramarital sex... but when will they ever find this out? If a male teacher gets his girlfriend pregnant - unless the school sees the woman and finds out, they would be unable to tell... but because the teacher herself is pregnant...
The policy is simply unbalanced because only women have a visual cue to the fact that they have had sex and are pregnant. Here I'm referring to the current custom of referring to the family as being pregnant, e.g. a male can claim "we're pregnant" when reffering to he and his partner's current family situation. But you wouldn't be able to tell the male "is pregnant" unless he said so.
3 - absolutely agreed - and see the next statement...
4 - Maybe she's intending to marry the father? Or - the article did not say - perhaps she was raped?
I do not know if this is case here - but I have seen a similar case before where the female teacher was aquaintance-raped and became pregnant and was subsequently fired in the same manner... how is _that_ not being a living example of Catholic principles?
Also - taking the whole pro-life issue into consideration - why would you need to be forgiven for deciding to bring a new life into the world? She may indeed be sorry for her sexual behavior, and may have gained religious forgiveness for it - but the pregnancy doesn't go away because you're sorry (or forgiven)...
And - as an aside - does the school realize that they may have created a situation where the child will be born into poverty because the mother no longer has a job?
5 - and this is exactly why it is unfair... this is one of the few, if not only, since I can't think of any other, "sins" that is obvious to the world... so, a teacher who has murdered someone but no one finds out can continue to teach, but the woman who becomes pregnant cannot?
-Emily
9:29 AM, December 02, 2005
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