Woman Fired On International Woman’s Day – For Being Pro-Choice (VIDEO)

By
Danielle Hartshorn
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Members of the anti-choice movement often encourage women to give their babies up for adoption. Those people have shown yet again that all they really care about is controlling women.

Hope Haven

Lori Gregory is the former director of Hope Haven, a mental health facility for uninsured children that’s run by Catholic Charities. In fact, they’re the only facility that offers free counseling to troubled youth in Mississippi. It was a job she cherished up until she was fired yesterday.

On International Women’s Day, her 15-year position was terminated because she had refused to be silent about abortion.

Catholic Charities stumbled upon an article that was in Find It In Fondren, called Stand Up, Be Heard: Lori Gregory. It praised both her work with disadvantaged youth and her opposition to Proposition 26, which would basically prevent any abortion.

Also known as the Personhood Amendment, the 2011 legislation would have considered fertilized eggs to be actual human beings. Simply put, women would be forced to carry to term and either raise the baby themselves or give it up for adoption.

Working with adopted kids is what Gregory did at Hope Haven.

Keeping Quiet

It wasn’t the first time her employer had chided her for being openly pro-choice. A 2013 article for Slate titled They Call Me the Devil: What It’s Like to Be An Escort At Mississippi’s Last Abortion Clinic also got under their skin.

After seeing the article, Catholic Charities made her do two things: keep quiet on abortion and stop volunteering at the Jackson Women’s Health Center.

She reluctantly stopped volunteering and said:

“It broke my heart. It was one of my most favorite things to do. I spent two years of my life intensively involved in social justice work with women here…And it as a great joy of mine but I also knew that I needed to have a job.”

Quitting her volunteer work wasn’t enough for Catholic Charities, who are sticking by their decision to terminate her. They’ve made it clear that unless you’re against abortion, working with the Catholic Church isn’t for you.

Their communications director for the Jackson diocese, Maureen Smith, said that Gregory was being “hypocritical and that’s problematic.” Perhaps the true hypocrisy here is claiming to be “pro-life” and then firing someone who’s done an amazing job at helping troubled foster kids, simply because she’s pro-choice.

Watch this video to fully understand how Proposition 26 would have affected women.

Feature Image Source: Screenshot Via Twitter. 

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