Abortion (Non-Emergency): Court Upholds Nurse's Right to Refuse to Assist
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
November 1998
Quick Summary: It is unlawful religious discrimination for a nurse's employment to be adversely affected by a stance against elective abortion.
Two nurses sent letters to the hospital stating they would not participate in elective abortion procedures, based on their moral beliefs.
Their moral beliefs constitute an expression held with the strength of traditional religious conviction. NEW YORK SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE DIVISION, 1998.
A recent opinion of the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, should be taken cautiously.
The court stated that a nurse has the right to refuse to participate in an elective termination of pregnancy, on grounds of freedom from religious discrimination in employment. But the case did not involve an elective procedure. The mother was at risk and it was an emergency.
The court never expressly defined one way or the other a nurse’s rights or responsibilities in an emergency situation.
The nurses were asked by their nursing supervisor if they would assist in an emergency evacuation of a dead fetus. The nursing supervisor was aware of their moral objections to elective abortions.
Instead of a simple refusal, the nurses used it as an opportunity to launch into an argument about elective abortions. And this, the court ruled, was insubordinate behavior under the circumstances. Larson v. Medical, 676 N.Y.S. 2d 293 (N.Y. App., 1998).