Monday, April 25, 2011, Steven Kreytak, an American-Statesman Staff published: “Fired bus driver gets $21,000 settlement after refusing ride to Planned Parenthood.” This Austin American-Statesman article adds another addition to the on going Planned Parenthood/women’s rights controversy.
A $21,000 settlement has been paid by the Capital Area Rural Transportation System, on a lawsuit filed last year in U.S. District Court in Austin, by a driver who was fired for refusing to take two women to a Planned Parenthood clinic last year.
Edwin Graning, an employee with the nine-county public transportation system, known as CARTS, filed a lawsuit that claimed officials with CARTS discriminated against him based on his religion. In the lawsuit, Mr. Graning stated: he refused to drive the women because he had been “concerned that he might be transporting a client to undergo an abortion.” In January 2010, after Mr. Graning was called to take the women to Planned Parenthood, he called his supervisor “and told her that, in good conscience, he could not take someone to have a abortion.” Following Mr. Granings decision, he was fired.
The Capital Area Rural Transportation System board members approved the lawsuit settlement after determining the cost of defending the lawsuit could exceed the settlement amount. However, Mr. Graning is no longer allowed to seek employment again with the transportation system. Graning said it was a “fair settlement.” David Marsh, general manager of the Capital Area Rural Transportation System, said that because of Mr. Graning’s case, officials have begun making it clear when drivers are hired “that we have a job to do and we don’t decide what destinations are.”
I believe that Mr. Graning was rightfully fired; however, I do not believe that he should have been paid out that amount of money or any money at all. He was not fired for discriminating against his religion, as he may believe, he was fired for not doing his job. It frustrates me being a woman, and seeing this is just another area in reality that we are being discriminated on. I truly hope one-day women, as individuals, will have our own rights for us to decide and not for everyone else to decide for us as a group of women.