Conway Regional Hospital Denies Allegations in Religious Discrimination Lawsuit, Asks Court to Dismiss Claims

Bioethics, COVID-19, , ,
Above: The religious exemption attestation form that Conway Regional Health System rolled out in September.

Attorneys for Conway Regional Medical Center have asked a judge to dismiss most of the allegations raised in a religious discrimination lawsuit brought against the hospital in October.

Research and development for the COVID-19 vaccines used cells that originated from aborted babies. As a result, some pro-lifers have objections to the COVID-19 vaccines, because of the vaccines’ connection to abortion.

In September Conway Regional made headlines after the hospital announced that employees who wanted a religious exemption because of the COVID-19 vaccine’s connection to abortion would also have to sign a form attesting that the employees would not use other medicines — such as Tylenol and Tums — that have been tested on aborted fetal tissue.

In October six individuals who are past or present employees of Conway Regional filed a lawsuit against the hospital.

According to the lawsuit, all six of the plaintiffs are Christians who have religious objections to the COVID-19 vaccine.

In an amended complaint filed on December 9, attorneys for the six plaintiffs provided the court with emails from Conway Regional’s CEO regarding the vaccine mandate.

The amended complaint alleges that one of the emails from Conway Regional’s CEO “equated employees who request religious exemptions from [the medical center’s] mandatory COVID vaccine policy with draft dodgers.”

Attorneys for the hospital responded to the amended complaint on Wednesday, generally denying the allegations and asking the court to dismiss all but two of the plaintiffs’ claims against Conway Regional.

Time will tell whether or not the court decides to dismiss any part of the religious discrimination lawsuit against Conway Regional Medical Center.

In September the Arkansas Legislature passed two identical laws addressing COVID-19 vaccine mandates. The laws require employers to provide certain accommodations for employees who decline to get vaccinated.

The Arkansas Attorney General’s Office also has joined multiple lawsuits against the Biden Administration’s federal vaccine mandates.

Family Council has a long history of supporting exemptions from vaccine mandates in Arkansas.

We don’t oppose immunizations, but we do believe people’s rights of conscience ought to be respected when it comes to getting vaccinated. Our laws should protect people from being forced to violate their conscience.

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China’s Organ Harvesting Problem

Bioethics, China, ,
John Stonestreet, Radio Host and Director of the Colson Center

According to a new report from the China Tribunal, the Chinese government is harvesting organs, essentially running a “kill to order” business of conscience dissidents from inside the Fulan Gong sect and Uyghur prison camps. They then remove organs from the dead.

The scale is stunning. Last year, China reported 20,000 organ transplants to the World Health Organization. Critics think the number is closer to 100,000. The numbers are staggering, but this is something that’s been widely reported since 2006, with government documents from China outlining parts of the practice since the early 2000s.

Forced organ harvesting from minorities is barbaric. It’s a consequence of the Chinese Communist Party’s dehumanizing view of its citizens and its totalitarian methods, which are further reflected in its draconian birth policies. The continuation of this practice is enabled by an international community still pretending it isn’t happening. 

The test of a society, and the worldview driving it, isn’t just what it promotes, but also what evil it confronts. Right now, the silence is telling.

Copyright 2021 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

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