Anti-Abortion Group Backs Fired Pregnant Teacher

Encouraging Abortion?

But what's unique about the case at St. Rose of Lima is that an anti-abortion group has sided with McCusker, claiming that the Catholic school was essentially encouraging abortion.

Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life, talks about McCusker at anti-abortion rallies, saying taking away a woman's job and income for being pregnant is anti-life.

"If you take away the resources, you could unintentionally drive a woman to having an abortion," said Foster.

"It is not pro-life to take away the resources and support that women need and deserve to bring children into this world," Foster says. "The appropriate response for the employer when they found out she was pregnant, is to say, 'Congratulations,' and, 'How can I help?' "

A 2004 survey by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights but is cited by both sides in the abortion wars as having reliable data, indicated that 73 percent of those seeking an abortion were doing so because they could not afford to have a baby.

"We have to systematically eliminate the reasons that drive women to abortions, and the root causes are lack of resources and lack of support," Foster says. "Women deserve both."

Tricky Case

The legal issues are tricky in this case -- religious organizations have wide latitude in employment decisions based on religious beliefs and behavior.

Last week in Hoover, Ala., a federal judge upheld the firing of another unwed pregnant teacher from a fundamentalist Christian school. The school argued that Tessana Lewis was not fired because she was pregnant but because she had sex outside of marriage.

Jurors had awarded in Lewis's favor, giving $600 in back pay and $15,000 for mental anguish, but U.S. District Judge William Acker Jr. found that because the Covenant Classical School of Trace Crossing is a religious institution, it can make hiring and firing decisions based on its beliefs.