The Huffington Post reports that Christa Dias, a teacher at a Catholic school in Ohio, claims that she was fired because she used artificial insemination as a means of achieving a pregnancy.  Apparently, this was not only in violation of the beliefs of the Catholic Church, but in violation of her employment contract.

According to the report, the schools initially fired Dias for being pregnant while single, but then changed their reasoning to being pregnant from artificial insemination, which they claim violates Catholic teaching as well as her employment contract.

“I’ve always wanted to have a baby,” Dias told the publication. “I’ve always known that. That’s why I became a teacher, because I love kids. I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

Dias sued the schools for discrimination April, but the case has been put on hold while the U.S. Supreme Court considers a similar case.

In their coverage of the incident, the blog Getreligion.org referenced a sidebar in the printed version of the article, which they say illustrate specifically the school claims against Dias:

CONTRACT CLAUSE DIAS AGREED TO WHEN HIREDThe teacher will “comply with and act consistently in accordance with the stated philosophy and teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and the policies and directives of the School and the Archdiocese.”

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, SECTION 2376

“The gift of a child”

“Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple – donation of a sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus – are gravely immoral. These techniques – heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization – infringe the child’s right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses’ ‘right to become a father and a mother only through each other.’ “

While the schools claim Dias’ dissmisal was not discriminatory, but the product of a violation of a legal contract, her attorneys argue that the same standards are not enforced on men who provide the sperm for artificial insemination.

I wonder how an employment contract that prohibits, indirectly as it is, such behavior can be valid to begin with.  Moreover, section 2376 has some pretty vile concepts: isn’t the Catholic Church forgetting that Mary was “artificially inseminated” by God and that she was the first Surrogate?