From: <CEvans1950@aol.com>
Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 06:36:05 EDT

Hello,

Here's another case where an individual expects everyone to cater to her voodoo-like taboos.

What a sad case... she has let her madness rule her life and now she thinks that she is being wronged when those irrational taboos make it impossible for her to do the job she volunteered for.

She should be seeking treatment for a mental defect, not suing the target of her illness.

How insane must you be when you insist on assisting in the overpopulation and eventual death of this planet? Suicidal/homicidal impulses are often considered a symptom of mental illness.... whether that wished-for death is a slow one or fast... and this sad loon has let an insane taboo rule her life in a manner that will guarantee the slow death of everyone and everything on this planet.

Sincerely,
Caroline

Pa. Clinic Fires Catholic Nurse

By KRISTEN HAYS
.c The Associated Press

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A Catholic nurse won't hand out birth control pills or condoms to single men and women anymore, but she wants her job back at a health clinic that calls contraception its No. 1 priority.

Family Health Services of Erie and Crawford County fired Laura Merriott after the nurse announced that she wanted no part in giving out contraception because she had re-examined her Roman Catholic faith, which denounces birth control.

Now Merriott, who lives in Erie, has filed a federal lawsuit saying she was fired "solely because of her sincerely held religious beliefs."

The clinic's directors said they could not reassign Merriott because most of the clinic's services include distributing contraception. About 85 percent of the clinic's patients are single.

Merriott was hired as a part-time nurse practitioner in February 1994. Her duties included conducting gynecological examinations and prenatal exams; screening for sexually transmitted diseases; and dispensing birth control pills and condoms.

She signed a copy of that job description when she was hired and voiced no concerns about her intended duties, court documents said.

Merriott, a retired U.S. Air Force major, testified in a deposition that she had been an obstetrics and gynecology nurse practitioner in the military for nearly 20 years before working at the clinic. She did not return calls made this week seeking comment.

In June 1994, she and her husband, practicing Catholics who hoped to re-examine their faith, participated in a Catholic program for people who convert to Catholicism, said her lawyer, James Coster.

The objection "wasn't something they just came up with," he said. "They kind of got recommitted to their faith."

Three months later, she told her supervisor that her religious beliefs prohibited her from giving contraceptives to single patients.

Sister Mary Jean Flaherty, dean of the School of Nursing at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., said Merriott is in step with the school's teachings.

"Our students have to have knowledge about contraceptives. We do not permit them to practice in a clinic or a setting where they're actually working with unmarried patients with contraception," Flaherty said.

Merriott said she would carry out other job duties, but clinic officials said that wasn't practical. State and federal regulations also bar her from choosing which clients to work with based on their marital status, officials said.

AP-NY-07-01-98 0506EDT