Southwest flight attendant gets $500,000 payout after she was fired for sharing fetus photos
To Southwest Airlines flight attendant who sued the airline and workers union in 2017 for discrimination after she was fired for sharing anti-abortion photographs of fetuses obtained an almost $500,000 payout from the airline — and will obtain one other $500,000 in further damages.
The award, issued April 10, comes after an appeals court docket dominated in October Charlene Carter was discriminated towards by the Dallas-based airline and the native union when she was fired for sending “graphic images and videos of aborted fetuses” to the union president, in line with court docket paperwork.
“Being a flight attendant is my livelihood and my passion, and union officials tried to manipulate company policy to upend my career simply because I spoke out about my most sincerely held beliefs,” Carter wrote in an announcement.
A Southwest spoke declined to remark to KERA.
Carter, who had been employed with the airline for greater than 20 years, grew to become upset after members of the Transport Workers Union of America Local 556 attended the Women’s March on Washington in 2017.
She despatched a video to then-union chief Audrey Stone on Facebook exhibiting a fetus in a metallic bowl and stated the union was “supporting this Murder,” in line with court docket information. Carter despatched one other message to Stone with an image of a fetus within the palm of somebody’s hand. She adopted up with messages about her anti-abortion and spiritual beliefs.
Stone reported the messages and Carter was fired.
“This case has been a protracted, laborious struggle, however I’ll by no means cease sticking up for what I do know is correct, and I hope that each my employer and TWU union bosses have discovered that it would not pay to stifle flight attendants’ freedom of faith and speech,” she said.
After Carter sued, a federal jury found the airline and union violated Carter’s rights to religious beliefs and practice under the Civil Rights Act. In October 2025, the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision while striking down a permanent injunction and contempt of court charge against the airline.
Court documents show Southwest paid Carter nearly $473,051 — including $150,000 in backpay and the rest in damages — earlier this month. Carter is owed $946,102 in total, but it wasn’t immediately clear how much the union is expected to pay.
The Transport Workers Union did not respond to requests for comment.
Carter was represented for free by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, an anti-union nonprofit, the group said in a press release.
“Ms. Carter was brave in standing as much as defend her spiritual and private beliefs from the schemes of radical union officers and a compliant employer,” basis President Mark Mix stated.
Dylan Duke is KERA’s Breaking News Reporter. Got a tip? Email Dylan Duke at dduke@kera.org.
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