RIVERSIDE, California, Dec. 4, 00 (CWNews.com) - A California nurse has filed a lawsuit against her former employer who fired her after she refused to dispense the abortifacient "morning-after" pill.

 Michelle Diaz was working at the Riverside Neighborhood Health Center in March 1999 when she and some colleagues expressed concern about dispensing the pill that causes spontaneous abortion if taken with days of conception. The lawsuit states that Diaz told her supervisor that her deeply held religious beliefs prevented her from distributing the medication because she believed she would be participating in an abortion.

 The lawsuit claims that the director of the center told Diaz that if she did not sign a document that required her to dispense what the county called "emergency contraception," which included the "morning-after" pill and other pregnancy-ending medications, she would no longer be able to work at the clinic. Diaz did not sign the document and wrote a letter to the director of public health explaining that her religious beliefs prevented her from doing so.

 "This case centers on the rights of our client to hold religious beliefs and have those beliefs accommodated by her employer," said Diaz' lawyer, Frank Manion of the American Center for Law and Justice.

 According to the suit, in June 1999, Diaz was contacted by news reporters concerning the "morning-after" pill controversy and explained her position to the media. The suit contends that on June 23, 1999 -- just days after speaking with the media -- she was told that she was being terminated.

 "This case may represent a new kind of religious discrimination in the workplace as health care professionals strive to follow their consciences as they begin dispensing new pregnancy-ending drugs like RU-486," said Manion.
 
 

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