Paige Casey entered the field of medicine to save lives, not end them.
She is excellent at her job. In fact, she worked for CVS for years as a nurse practitioner — receiving multiple pay raises and not a single complaint from colleagues or customers. She was fired anyway.
Why? Because Paige is a Catholic and doesn’t believe in abortion.
It wasn’t always a problem. For more than three years, CVS gave Paige a religious exemption from having to administer abortion-inducing drugs. But at the start of 2022, CVS changed its mind.
In January 2022, CVS notified Paige they were ending the exemption, and in April, they promptly fired her — two days after she had received a performance-based raise.
After years of education, training, and experience, Paige’s ability to keep her job hinged on whether or not she was willing to put a corporate mandate over her religion. Paige had to decide if she was willing to end lives to keep her paycheck.
Not only is this blatant religious discrimination, it’s illegal in the Commonwealth of Virginia. A state law, known as the “Conscience Clause,” prohibits businesses from punishing employees who refuse to hand out abortion drugs due to religious objections.
Mike DeAngelis, executive director of corporate communications at CVS Health, attempted to justify the company’s decision to break the law and fire Paige, insisting to Fox News, “It is not possible…to grant an accommodation that exempts an employee from performing the essential functions of their job.”
But if Paige was failing to perform the essential functions of her job, why did they give her a merit-based raise two days before firing her? “Every American should have the freedom to operate according to their ethical and religious beliefs,” said Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer, Kevin Theriot, who is representing Paige in a lawsuit.
If a patient wanted to secure abortion drugs at the CVS, they could have done so through other people working at the clinic. It had never been an issue. “For three and a half years, CVS easily accommodated my beliefs, and other medical professionals were willing and able to prescribe and administer the drugs if necessary,” Paige explained to reporters.
“CVS created a problem where none existed,” Theriot says.
It sure did. Paige Casey was an exemplary nurse practitioner, and she was fired for her faith. Let CVS know that religious discrimination is unacceptable.
Sign the Petition in support of religious freedom and ADF’s efforts to let CVS know: “We the people, some of whom are your customers, will not stand for any form of religious discrimination.”
