Almost every single thing for which Emily Herx asked the jury, she received.
Nearly $2 million in damages, and vindication, after the jury ruled that the Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend discriminated against the former language arts teacher at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School when they fired her for undergoing in vitro fertilization.
The verdict came after about 51/2 hours of deliberation Friday afternoon, capping off a four-day jury trial before U.S. District Judge Robert Miller Jr. in the expansive federal courthouse just a few blocks from the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, the center of the diocese.
As she waited for the jury to come in, Herx sat ramrod straight in her chair at the table next to her attorney, Kathleen DeLaney, her face anything but calm as she clearly tried to control her breathing and anxiety.
Throughout the trial, she heard herself characterized by the defense as a potential drug abuser, an emotional basket case and as someone who committed a sin so grave and immoral that no circumstances could justify it.
But after the verdict was read, she seemed to uncoil with relief, crying and holding onto DeLaney in a long and tearful embrace.
Whenever I hear people defending the church's anti-abortion stance it makes me shake my head.
The church is not so much interested in protecting unborn babies as they are in controlling women's reproductive organs.
All this woman was trying to do is exactly what the church claims to support. And that is to give birth to a child.
But because the woman, the married woman, could not conceive naturally, and turned to science instead of accepting God's will, she was not only condemned by the church but they took away her livelihood as well.
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