Discrimination | Teacher fired for 'refusing to have an abortion'

A catholic school has become embroiled in a serious HR dispute after an unmarried teacher was fired for refusing to get an abortion upon falling pregnant.

The teacher in question, named as Missouri, US, resident Michelle Bollen in the ongoing lawsuit against St Therese Catholic School in Kansas City, was told by the school’s senior management Father Jospeh Cisetti that her only option was to go against ‘catholic teaching’ and undergo an abortion, in which case the school could have avoided ‘the scandal of an unmarried pregnant teacher’.

He also told Bollen that ‘Pregnancy is not the problem; fornication is the problem’. 

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The teacher’s attorney, named as EE Keenan in the case, told local paper the Kansas City-Star that Cisetti’s willingness to forgo the school’s religious practices and order a staff member to undergo such a procedure is not only hypocritical, it’s also in direct violation of the 1986 Missouri Abortion Act, which protects women from being fired for refusing to have an abortion. “He’s basically speaking out of both sides of his mouth,” Keenan stated.