In July 2013, Montserrat Balselles was dismissed from her job at a Catholic hospital because she didn’t want to participate in abortions and openly expressed her pro-life views. The medical facility she worked at, Hospital de la Santa Creu, is located in Spain and hired Balselles as an X-ray technician.
At the time of her dismissal, Ballsells had worked at the hospital for five years and had good relationships with her coworkers. However, when she started shared her pro-life views they began making fun of her faith and convictions.
Ballsells said,” They always joked and taunted me. They laughed at the church and said really offensive things to annoy me.”
Balselles, who describes herself as a Catholic activist, said she couldn’t believe that after five years at the hospital she was facing discrimination because of her views on abortion. She also explained that before the incident she hadn’t received any complaints about her work because of her willingness to do everything. Unfortunately, because of the loss of employment, Balselles and her four children were forced to move out of their home and onto the streets.
Now Baiselles has filed a complaint to the Archbishop of Barcelona and spoken to the Labor Department about the discrimination. The hospital responded by saying that there isn’t any proof that she was dismissed because of her beliefs; instead, they claim that she fired because of a completely unrelated matter.
As LifeNews previously reported, in 2014 the British Supreme Court ruled that a pair of midwives who didn’t want to be involved in assisting abortions must do so. The senior midwives, Connie Wood and Mary Doogan, had more than 20 years of experience as Labor Ward Coordinators; but after the hospital reorganized their abortion “services,” transferring late abortion patients to the labor ward rather than the gynaecology ward, they were asked to participate in abortions.
SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must Ban Abortions Because Babies Feel Intense Pain
The midwives and their attorney’s argued that the Abortion Act of 1967 states that no one with a conscientious objection can be obliged to participate in abortion procedures. Nevertheless, the hospital management insisted that a conscientious objection clause in the 1967 Abortion Act applied only to active participation in a termination and did not cover the women’s duties to delegate, supervise and support staff.
After the decision, the midwives expressed their disappointment. They said, “We are both saddened and extremely disappointed with today’s verdict from the Supreme Court and can only imagine the subsequent detrimental consequences that will result from today’s decision on staff of conscience throughout the UK. Despite it having been recognized that the number of abortions on the labour ward at our hospital is in fact a tiny percentage of the workload, which in turn could allow the accommodation of conscientious objection with minimal effort, this judgment, with its constraints and narrow interpretation, has resulted in the provision of a conscience clause which now in practice is meaningless for senior midwives on a labour ward.”
