Diocese to Lose $2 Million in Teacher’s IVF Lawsuit | Daily News | NCRegister.com

 

federal jury ruled the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., broke the law when it fired a teacher for violating the morals clause of her contract.

by PETER JESSERER SMITH 12/27/2014 Comments (93)

– Facebook/Saint Vincent de Paul School

INDIANAPOLIS — A federal grand jury decided the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., will have to pay out nearly $2 million to a teacher it fired for violating the morals clause of her contract by using artificial means to get pregnant.

The jury found the diocese guilty of violating the Civil Rights Act as a result of its decision to uphold its Catholic identity by enforcing the morals clause, which applies to all teachers working in diocesan schools.

The jury of five women and seven men deliberated five and a half hours Dec. 19 before announcing that the Indiana diocese unlawfully discriminated against Emily Herx on the basis of her sex when it declined to renew her contract in June 2011.

Herx, a married Catholic woman, had been a junior-high language-arts teacher at St. Vincent de Paul School in Fort Wayne since 2003. She told diocesan officials that she was conceiving a child through in vitro fertilization (IVF) and was let go after rejecting the diocese’s attempts to reconcile her with Church teaching.

IVF is a technique where children are artificially conceived in a petri dish, with sperm mixed with human eggs. Several embryos are injected into the mother’s womb in the hope that one of them implants successfully. According to Church teaching stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, these artificial methods — even when they involve only the father and mother — are “morally unacceptable” because “they dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act” (2376).

IVF treatments also can involve additional moral problems, most notably the creation and destruction of additional human embryos along with those allowed to survive and be born.

According to local media, the jury ordered the diocese to pay Herx $1.75 million for emotional and physical damages, $125,000 for medical expenses, $75,000 for lost wages and $1 in punitive damages.

Herx’s attorney, Kathleen DeLaney, told reporters after the decision that it had been a “very long and difficult fight” with the diocese and that she hoped “this can make some changes for women in the workplace.”

The Register reached out to DeLaney for comment but received none as of publication time.

Diocese to Lose $2 Million in Teacher’s IVF Lawsuit | Daily News | NCRegister.com