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Doctors refuse to treat lesbian due to 'religious reasons'http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/08/02/MNGMQE1I441.... [quote:b1c3b3b102][b:b1c3b3b102]Medical group to rethink support in case of doctors who wouldn't treat lesbian[/b:b1c3b3b102] Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, August 2, 2005 The California Medical Association will consider withdrawing its appellate court brief supporting the position of doctors who refused to artificially inseminate a Southern California lesbian on religious grounds, a spokesman for the group said. The doctors argued in court documents that they should not have to treat Guadalupe Benitez because inseminating an unmarried woman contradicted their religious convictions. The 30,000-member association, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in May, softened its stance when its leaders learned Friday that a doctor in the case had said under oath that she would not inseminate "a gay couple," said Peter Warren, the association spokesman. "We're re-examining (our brief) based on additional facts that came to light," Warren said. "The important thing is for us to make the right decision here and determine whether to be involved in the case." The medical association's executive committee will discuss the issue at a meeting Monday in Sacramento, he said. In its brief, the association argued that the doctors should be allowed to argue in court that they had a right to refuse to treat some patients based on a personal religious conviction. Until this week, California's Unruh Act did not prohibit discrimination on the basis of marital status. On Monday, the California Supreme Court ruled in a separate case that the Unruh Act, cited by attorneys in Benitez's case, protects registered domestic partners from discrimination. Benitez and her partner are registered domestic partners. Benitez's lawyer said Monday's ruling will make it more difficult for the doctors to argue that their refusal to inseminate Benitez was protected by their right to religious freedom. "This is yet one more reason why this argument is a nonstarter," said Jennifer Pizer, senior counsel for the Western regional office of Lambda, a group that specializes in gay and lesbian rights. An attorney for the doctors said Monday's ruling does not address constitutional claims that compete against the Unruh Act, such as freedom of religion. "It's a very interesting development, but it doesn't address this whole case or make it one way or the other," said Gabriele Prater. The California Medical Association said it was not taking a position on the doctors' motivation for refusing treatment. But in its initial and supplemental briefs filed in San Diego, the association argued that doctors treating Benitez had the legal right to refuse her treatment on religious grounds if they did so because she was unmarried. Association leaders now say they were unaware of a November 2001 declaration that is part of the court record in which Dr. Christine Brody, Benitez's physician at the North Coast Women's Care Medical Group in Vista (San Diego County), cited Benitez's sexual orientation as grounds for her refusal to treat Benitez. "I specifically informed Ms. Benitez on the initial visit that if her fertility treatment progressed to the point where intrauterine insemination was the next recommended step, it was against my religious beliefs to actually perform (the procedure) for a gay couple," Brody said.[/quote:b1c3b3b102] My "favourite" quote is at the end: In other words, "I look forward to accepting your gay money throughout this consultation, pre-insemination procedures, and office visits, up to the point where I must actually perform a service and do my job in return for said monies. At that point, I object." :roll: Submitted by Koma, Moderator (10197 posts) on August 5, 2005 - 6:30am. |
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Doctors refuse to treat lesbian due to 'religious reasons'
^^ Totally agree with that comment Koma. Stuff like this is really hard to argue. I took a bioethics class and one of the hardest things to deal with was personal beliefs, either those of the doctor or a segment of society who wants to "allow" or "not allow" you to do something to your own body.
My question I guess is then why is this person in this business? It's like pharmacy owners refusing to give out birth control pills. So you're just not going to carry an array of pills that people can use for various reasons, not just for birth control. Are you going to ask them to divulge why exactly they are on said pill? Well that would be a violation of privacy wouldn't it? Is a doctor gonna tell his patient "oh, I dont' believe in birth control so even though your on this to clear up your skin, I'm discontinuing your prescription when you become sexually active".
I wonder if this doctor has any other "criteria" she uses to figure out if inseminees are "worthy" of the procedure. "Oh, you've been divorced, you will be an unfit parent. Doesn't matter if you're remarried, you're going to hell and I refuse to give you a child to go with you!" :roll:
I'm waiting for some doctor to refuse to treat their patient at all. "I'm sorry you have cancer.... no no, no chemo or radiation... god wants you to die". This is of course ridiculous and I hope that no doctor would actually ever say that. But where does "I don't want to treat them because of my beliefs" stop? I mean in this case the doctor obviously has homophobic and heterosexist ideas about lesbian mothers and the nuclear family. It doesn't directly affect the health of these women. But what if it did? :?
Doctors refuse to treat lesbian due to 'religious reasons'
[quote:a4548ef3c7="Ronijn"]My question I guess is then why is this person in this business?[/quote:a4548ef3c7]
That's really my question, too. I agree that it is a hard one to call.... and that I am inclined to say a person shouldn't have to act against his/her religious beliefs.... but then you have to ask yourself, if the person has such strong beliefs that will only allow them to treat certain people in certain circumstances, do they really have the right job? I thought the same thing when I heard about a non-medical case over here in the UK.... a (presumably) heterosexual man who ran a boarding-house in Scotland had written an email back to a gay male couple who had applied for a room with a double bed, saying that they could not stay in a double room: "what you do in your private life is up to you, but we will not condone your perversion". It caused a bit of a splash in the papers, with people arguing over whether he had a right to respond like that or not. My own personal feeling was, I suppose, that he had a right to refuse them a room if it was strongly against his religious convictions... but then, if he's so worried about 'condoning perversions', that he really shouldn't be running a boarding-house in the first place. I mean, is he going to check out the activities of every person under his roof? If a heterosexual couple apply for a double room claiming they're married, is he going to refuse it to them unless they can produce a marriage license? What's to stop them getting separate rooms, and then one of them simply coming over and they have sex in one of the single rooms? For that matter, what's to stop a gay male couple applying for twin beds, and then screwing all day long in one of them? Plus: if he's not prepared to welcome EVERYONE, then why on earth is he running a hospitality service?
ETA: as a nice postscript to this story, you might like to know that several sympathetic boarding-house-owners sent letters into the paper when they heard the story, telling the gay male couple that they could stay at THEIR boarding-houses whenever they liked.
Doctors refuse to treat lesbian due to 'religious reasons'
Do you know what I find really scary? It's the fact that the doctor gave the excuse that she wouldn't inseminate her cause she wasn't married as well. This calls to mind the treatment of Muslim women in some middle eastern countries. They are not allowed do anything or go anywhere without a man's permission and they belong to that man. Is that what the west is turning into? Religious fanaticism seems to be the same no matter what the religion....
Doctors refuse to treat lesbian due to 'religious reasons'
A terrible conclusion to this story:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gay3dec03,1,7866555.story?coll=l...
[quote:ec86421f62][b:ec86421f62]Refusal to Treat Lesbian Upheld[/b:ec86421f62]
Doctors say they denied insemination because woman was single, not because she was gay.
By Tony Perry, Times Staff Writer
SAN DIEGO — A state appeals court ruled Friday that two fertility doctors had the right to refuse to artificially inseminate a lesbian based on her marital status because it would have violated their religious beliefs.
The ruling reversed a lower court decision that Drs. Christine Brody and Douglas Fenton could not use religion as a defense against a lawsuit filed by Guadalupe T. Benitez, 33.
An attorney for a gay rights group said the decision would be appealed to the California Supreme Court out of concern that the ruling could encourage other discrimination against gays and lesbians on religious grounds.
"We fear this decision is going to worsen the confusion in the minds of the public about whether you can legally discriminate in the name of religion," said Jenny Pizer, attorney for Lambda Legal Defense. "The bottom line is that you should not be able to treat patients in a discriminatory way."
On a 3-0 ruling, the appeals panel found that the doctors were within their rights because they based their decision on Benitez's unmarried status and that discrimination based on marital status is not prohibited by state law.
Benitez, of Oceanside, was denied the insemination treatment by the two doctors at the North Coast Women's Care Medical Group in Vista after 11 months of preliminary treatment.
She received the treatment at another clinic, became pregnant and gave birth to a boy.
Benitez went to the North Coast group at the direction of her insurance carrier. In the court case, she alleges that she had to beg for another referral when the doctors refused her insemination request.
The California Medical Assn. and the Christian Medical and Dental associations joined in the doctors' defense.
The physicians asserted that they would refuse to artificially inseminate any unmarried woman, regardless of her sexual orientation. [/quote:ec86421f62]
Okay, I know this is about discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but, based on the doctors' defense...how is it okay to discriminate against single people? :?
Whatever happened to doctors treating EVERYBODY? As someone much wiser than me said recently on the Big Gay Picture, if you don't want to perform your job, don't choose that career.
This ruling sets a poor precedent for pharmacists, doctors, and other life-altering professions to deny basic medical care to people on the basis of their own whims, err, "religious beliefs." :roll:
The same problem has cropped up recently, fwiw, with pharmacists refusing to sell birth control or the morning after pill, which is why I bring it up. *Shaking head*
Doctors refuse to treat lesbian due to 'religious reasons'
Just goes to show some doctors are doctors for the wrong reasons.
She needs to make her policy be known before consultation that way an individual does not waste precious time. You can't get people involved in a lenghty process and then at the end of it not follow through. People count on doctors to do what they say they can do.
I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir....
Doctors refuse to treat lesbian due to 'religious reasons'
Thank God for Canada and its free public healthcare... Very few private hospitals around where they can choose to turn you away based on their "moral principles." Unless the Conservatives get a hold of the system that is.
For me there is only one main principle and that is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" That [i:d992684101]used[/i:d992684101] to be what Christianty was about...