CVS Well being is going through one other lawsuit introduced by a former worker who claims the pharmacy chain’s determination to fireplace her after she refused to prescribe contraception to sufferers violated her non secular rights beneath federal legislation. J. Robyn Strader, a nurse practitioner and Texas resident, labored at a CVS MinuteClinic for six and a half years, in line with the lawsuit, which she filed by means of her legal professional in U.S. district court docket in Forth Value on Wednesday.

The grievance alleges that CVS terminated Strader’s employment illegally, arguing that the corporate’s determination dismissed protections outlined in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The availability, handed as a part of a broader bundle of landmark laws in 1964, prohibits employment discrimination on the idea of race, coloration, faith, intercourse and nationwide origin. One part of Title VII particularly notes that “[t]he time period ‘faith’ consists of all facets of spiritual observance and apply, in addition to perception, until an employer demonstrates that he’s unable to fairly accommodate to an worker’s or potential worker’s non secular observance or apply with out undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s enterprise.”

Strader claims within the new lawsuit that her Christian religion prevented her from prescribing contraceptive or abortion-inducing medicine to sufferers on the CVS the place she labored. For almost all of Strader’s tenure there, she says CVS granted her a spiritual lodging that allowed her to personally reject sufferers’ requests for these prescriptions and as a substitute refer them to a colleague or a special MinuteClinic. However, in August 2021, CVS Well being revoked a earlier coverage relating to non secular lodging that ensured all staff’ wants could be met, the swimsuit says.

“CVS’s new coverage is to disclaim all such non secular lodging with out contemplating the actual circumstances of the worker requesting the lodging, together with to find out whether or not that worker could possibly be accommodated with out undue hardship,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit asserts that the pharmacy might have transferred Strader to a job that will not require her to be in conditions the place she might need to prescribe contraception, as a substitute of maintaining her in an “important” place the place offering non secular lodging straight conflicted with the perform of her job. Citing each the Civil Rights Act and one other court docket case that states employers should take into account non secular lodging requests on a person foundation, the lawsuit additionally claims that CVS “failed to have interaction along with her about attainable lodging, and terminated her due to her non secular beliefs.”

Strader’s authorized grievance is just like two different fits filed in Kansas and Virginia in opposition to CVS Well being final yr, the place former staff alleged that they have been unlawfully terminated for refusing to prescribe contraception due to their non secular beliefs. Within the Virginia grievance, filed final September, the plaintiff, Paige Casey, was represented by the conservative nonprofit authorized group Alliance Defending Freedom.

Across the time Casey’s lawsuit was filed, Michael DeAngelis, a spokesperson for CVS, informed CBS MoneyWatch that the corporate does attempt to accommodate staff’ non secular beliefs, however offering sexual and reproductive well being providers to sufferers is a elementary a part of working at its walk-in clinics.

“It isn’t attainable … to grant an lodging that exempts an worker from performing the important features of their job,” DeAngelis mentioned in an announcement. “We can not grant exemptions from these important MinuteClinic features.”

CBS Information contacted CVS Well being for a response to Strader’s lawsuit however didn’t obtain a direct reply.

Because the U.S. Supreme Courtroom overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that in 1973 established federal rights to decide on to have an abortion, states throughout the nation have handed their very own legal guidelines proscribing entry to the process, with at the very least 13 of them enacting near-total abortion bans. Each CVS and Walgreens, that are the nation’s largest drugstore chains, lately informed CBS MoneyWatch that they intend to promote the abortion drug mifepristone after the Meals and Drug Administration reversed a ruling that prevented retail pharmacies from allotting the remedy. 

The FDA’s determination got here simply days after a Justice Division ruling confirmed that U.S. Postal Service can proceed to ship abortion remedy by mail, even in states which have handed restrictions since Roe’s reversal. Though CVS and Walgreens drugstores won’t be able to promote mifepristone in states the place abortion is banned, the FDA ruling is predicted to broaden entry to a drug that beforehand was restricted to smaller mail-order pharmacies.