In the Office for Civil Rights complaint filed by Diane J. Horvath-Cosper, MD, an obstetrician-gynecologist and fellow at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC, she outlines what she says was an insistence by hospital administrators to stop her from talking publicly about abortion.
These are excerpts from the complaint:
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“On December 4, 2015, Dr. Gregory Argyros (Chief Medical Officer), in an alleged attempt to increase security at the Hospital, instructed Dr. Horvath-Cosper to immediately cease her media advocacy on the ‘topic’ of abortion, stating, inter alia, that he did not ‘want to put a K-Mart blue light special on the fact that we provide abortions at MedStar.’”
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“Since this time, MedStar has prohibited Dr. Horvath-Cosper from accepting any media engagements on the topic of abortion and related women’s health issues, threatened repercussions if she continued with her public abortion advocacy, directed her not to take legal action, isolated her within her Department, Obstetrics-Gynecology (‘OB-GYN’), and forced her to choose between remaining employed and sacrificing the public advocacy that is central to her moral convictions about abortion and the primary reason she became an FPF at MedStar.”
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“Upon information and belief, MedStar does not similarly restrict the speech of physicians in other specialties who seek to engage in media advocacy about their specialty or discriminate against them when they speak out.”
