In a ruling that stemmed from a lawsuit brought by a Northern San Diego County woman against two doctors, the California Supreme Court has ruled today that medical treatments to gay patients cannot be denied based on the doctors’ religious beliefs.
Today’s ruling reverses a lower court deciions and clears the way for a trial in the SD Superior Court for the suit brought by Guadalupe Benitez against the physicians, Douglas Fenton and Christine Brody.
The case began in 1999, when Guadalupe was referred by another doctor to the North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group for infertility care.
After Benitez underwent 11 months of preparatory care, she was told that the doctors would not perform the donor insemination she sought because she is a lesbian. The doctors claimed a right to opt out of California’s civil rights law because they hold a “‘fundamentalist Christian” view and object to treating a lesbian patient in the same way they would treat a heterosexual patient with fertility problems.
In effect, today’s ruling says that Benitez is entitled to be treated like other patients with the same condition, and that constitution protections for religious freedoms do not excuse what they called “unlawful discrimination”.
Justice Joyce L. Kennard wrote: “defendant physicians contend that exposing them to liability for refusing to
perform the IUI medical procedure for plaintiff infringes upon their First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion. Not so.”
Benitez had this to say about the case “This isn’t just a win for me personally and for other lesbian women. It’s a win for everyone, because anyone could be the next target if doctors are allowed to pick and choose their patients based on religious views about other groups of people.”
She went on to say: “It’s taken nearly 10 years to get to this point, but it was worth it.” Guadalupe is now a mother of three.
What do you think? Should doctors have the right to refuse certain services based on their religious convictions?
Warning: This is a button-pusher issue for me.
“Should doctors have the right to refuse certain services based on their religious convictions?”
Simply, no. NO, NO, NO.
To steal an analogy I read elsewhere today, does this mean that a evangelical firefighter would have the right to say he’s not going to put out a fire at a synagogue or a mosque?
If you’re a pharmacist, it’s your job to fill prescriptions. It’s not your job to moralize over whether folks are using contraceptives or Viagra (funny how those cases are NEVER about Viagra, though, huh).
If you’re a physician who doesn’t want to perform IVF procedures or abortions, go into another speciality.
Or get another job. Period.
This is also a touchy issue for myself also. I have to agree with Quaker Dave on this. If you go into a specialized field you need to treat all your patients fairly.
Does the Hippocratic Oath mean nothing these days?
If a firefighter refuses to put out a temple or a mosque because it is not of their religion they would loose their job in a heart beat as they swore to keep peopl safe.
Doctors are of a humane profession, they swore to uphold human life. Just because someone is of a different race, sexual creed, or whatever does not make them any less human.
So no, I don’t think they should be allowed to say no to someone because of their sexual orientation. They cannot do it because of race…they would have their butts hauled to court so fast their heads would spin.
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