The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today rebuked Attorney General Martha Coakley for suggesting that pro-life religious believers should not work in hospital emergency rooms. During an interview on the Ken Pittman Show on WBSM Radio in New Bedford, Coakley — the Democratic nominee in the special U.S. Senate election to succeed the late Edward M. Kennedy — criticized her Republican opponent for attempting to insert a conscience clause in the state law requiring hospitals to dispense so-called emergency contraception to rape victims.
When asked about the conscience rights of hospital personnel, Coakley, after raising the separation of church and state, responded “You can have religious freedom, but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.”
The Catholic Action League called Coakley’s remark “a chilling expression of extremism, effectively endorsing religious discrimination in the workplace.”
Catholic Action League Executive Director C.J. Doyle stated: “Martha Coakley evidently believes that anyone with sincerely held moral and religious convictions about the sanctity of innocent human life — such as Catholics, Evangelicals, Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and others — should be excluded from the medical and nursing professions. For pro-life religious believers, the only ‘choice’ Coakley is prepared to allow is one between violating their consciences or sacrificing their jobs.”
“It is no wonder that Martha Coakley has kept such a low profile in this campaign. Her handlers obviously understand that a candid enunciation of her far-left views would shock and offend mainstream voters.”
“The religious freedom rights guaranteed by both the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and even more broadly, by the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution include not only freedom of worship but the right to act in accordance with a religiously informed conscience. This principle was affirmed by the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth as recently as 1995 in the Desilets case, when the court ruled that the Attorney General had to demonstrate a compelling state interest — a substantial burden in law — to enforce an anti-discrimination statute against two Catholic brothers in Turner Falls who refused to rent an apartment to an unmarried couple. That the chief law enforcement officer of Massachusetts is unaware of this, or indifferent to it, or opposed to it, should alarm anyone concerned with religious freedom in America.”
