A Catholic nurse sued Duke University and the university’s health system over religious discrimination, alleging the university hospital put her on administrative leave because she would not perform abortion services.
Duke University Hospital nurse Sara Pedro filed a lawsuit on Friday in North Carolina and claims hospital administrators discriminated against her moral objections to abortion, birth control and vaccination, according to the News and Observer. Pedro started working at the hospital in August 2016, according to the report.
Pedro allegedly received an exemption in 2016 from the hospital to not get vaccines and she also informed the hospital in December that she would not help with abortion or administer patients vaccines or contraceptives.
Hospital administrators allegedly put Pedro on administrative leave.
“Duke does not allow employees a religious accommodation with regard to abortion,” a trainer told Pedro last summer, according to the suit lawsuit.
The university violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 religious-discrimination clause by not allowing the nurse “reasonable accommodation,” the suit insists.
“An employer does not have to accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs or practices if doing so would cause undue hardship to the employer,” according to the the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “An accommodation may cause undue hardship if it is costly, compromises workplace safety, decreases workplace efficiency, infringes on the rights of other employees, or requires other employees to do more than their share of potentially hazardous or burdensome work.”
Duke University did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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