Press Release
From:
The Pro-Life Infonet Weekly <infonet@prolifeinfo.org>
Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org>
Subject: Nationally Renown Pro-Life Nurse Fired From Christ Hospital
Job
Source: Chicago Tribune, Daily Southtown; September 2, 2001
Nationally
Renown Pro-Life Nurse Fired From Christ Hospital Job
Chicago,
IL -- Two years after she first ccame into the national spotlight
over her employer's "live birth abortion" policy, pro-life
advocate Jill Stanek said Sunday that she has been fired from her
nursing job at Christ Hospital and Medical Center in the Chicago
suburb of Oak Lawn, Illinois.
Hospital
officials said the discharge Friday had nothing to do with the delivery
room nurse's pro-life views, and Stanek declined to further discuss
what her manager or the human resources department head told her
Friday until she has a chance to talk with her attorney.
Stanek
has criticized the hospital since 1999 and has continued to give
frequent media interviews to criticize the hospital's rare use of
labor-induced abortion. She was suspended once for leaking confidential
papers to the media, she said, and twice has been put on "final
warning" probation after breaking an unspecified rule in her
employment contract.
A major
turn of events took place in February of 2000 when Nurse Stanek
was forced to appear before a hospital Board of Review where she
it was alleged that she had, "contributed to a negative working
environment because of her pro-life activism." She responded
that hospital policy, "limited her rights and entitlement to
free speech." She won that round when the board agreed to revise
her evaluation, but let stand an admonishment.
As
part of the abortion procedure, doctors artificially deliver an
unborn child in the second trimester if they detect a severe abnormality
that would prevent her from surviving. But the abortion procedure
can also occasionally result in unborn children living for as long
as an hour outside the womb and hospital staff leave them to die.
In
July, Stanek testified on the issue before the U.S. House Judiciary
Committee in favor of the pro-life Born Alive Infants Protection
Act. Two weeks ago, a Chicago newspaper and the Pro-Life Infonet
highlighted her history of activism against the hospital.
When
she returned to work Friday from vacation, Stanek was told she was
fired and escorted from the building, she said.
"It
couldn't be coincidence this happened right after the article,"
Stanek said.
However,
hospital spokesman Michael Maggio said the article had nothing to
do with the decision to let Stanek go. "She was the main reason
our hospital became the center of attention in the abortion debate,"
Maggio said. "But that had nothing to do with it."
"The
article was no precipitating factor. I can tell you that much. ...
The article is a non-issue," Maggio said. "She no longer
works at Christ Medical Center. How that decision was reached, I
was not involved."
Maggio
declined to explain why Stanek was fired, saying that personnel
files are confidential.
Stanek
said she had been on "final warning" at Christ Hospital
because she had encouraged people to picket a doctor who performed
abortions. "I suppose it was a surprise and not a surprise,"
Stanek said.
Stanek
started at the hospital in 1993 and wasn't aware at first that the
hospital performed labor-induced abortions. When she witnessed an
aborted baby with Down syndrome that survived outside the womb for
45 minutes, she alerted hospital officials, thinking something went
wrong, she said.
In
1999, after consulting her pastor, she complained to the Illinois
attorney general's office. Investigators concluded that the hospital
violated no state laws.
But
soon after, the hospital's parent, Advocate Health Care, tightened
its policies to no longer permit abortions on unborn children with
non-lethal birth defects like Down syndrome or spina bifida.
The
controversy spurred pro-life state Sen. Patrick J. O'Malley of Palos
Park -- now a candidate for the GOP nomination for governor -- to
introduce a package of bills in the legislature that would have
given "born-alive" infants a right to life. After being
passed in the Illinois Senate, it was killed in a House committee.
"Jill
Stanek is one of the most courageous women I have ever met,"
said O'Malley, a former member of the hospital's governing council
who resigned his post because of the controversy. "I'm astounded
they fired such a talented professional. They're losing one of their
best."
Christ
Hospital has never performed elective abortions, Maggio said. Currently
it does the abortion procedure in cases of rape, incest, where the
health of the mother is threatened or if fatal abnormalities are
involved.
The
hospital typically performs only 15 to 20 labor-induced abortions
out of more than 4,000 deliveries each year, said Rev. Larry Easterling,
vice president of Christ Hospital. But he claimed the practice is
common at hospitals across the nation.
Stanek
said that her fight against abortions at Christ Hospital will not
end.
"I
will continue to speak out on behalf of the babies who were aborted
alive at Christ," she said. "I'll continue to do what
I can to stop the abortions there."
###
Jill
Stanek's testimony before a congressional committee:
http://www.house.gov/judiciary/stan0720.htm
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