Lawsuit Filed After Ambulance Driver Fired for Refusing to Transport Woman to Abortuary

CHICAGO, May 11, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The American Center for Law and Justice has filed a federal lawsuit against an ambulance company in Elmhurst, Illinois on behalf of an employee who was fired for following her religious beliefs and refusing to take part in an abortion procedure.  The ACLJ filed suit today in U.S. District Court in Chicago on behalf of Stephanie Adamson, who was employed by the Superior Ambulance Service, located in Elmhurst, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.  Adamson was hired as an Emergency Medical Technician in 2003 and was responding to a non-emergency call in August 2003 to transport a patient from Mt. Sinai Hospital in Chicago to an abortuary near Cook County Hospital. According to the complaint, once Adamson confirmed that her assignment was to transport the patient for an elective abortion, she told her employer that transporting the patient to an abortion clinic violated her religious beliefs. After a second crew was sent to transport the patient, Adamson’s supervisor immediately fired her following a brief telephone call on August 21, 2003.  “This is a case where an employer fired an employee for acting in accordance with her religious beliefs by refusing to become a participant in an abortion,” said Francis J. Manion, Senior Counsel of the ACLJ, which represents the former employee. “Our client became an EMT because she wanted to save lives, not take lives. Under both federal employment discrimination laws and Illinois state laws, employers cannot simply fire an employee who objects to participating in a medical procedure that is contrary to the employee’s religious beliefs.”