It has just been decided by the California Supreme Court that “Doctors may not discriminate against gays and lesbians in medical treatment, even if the procedures being sought conflict with physicians’ religious beliefs.” Since when the hell have doctor’s been allowed to refuse treatment to ANYONE because of religions beliefs? A doctors job to is help people. Is a doctor refusing to treat a homosexual not exactly the same as a restaurant refusing to sell someone food because of their sexual preference? A doctor’s job is not to judge people it’s to help them. Allowing religion to decide when a doctor is or isn’t allowed to treat someone completely ridiculous and dangerous.

Obviously my opinion on this issue is very strong, but this battle has been going on for 10 years. So this is a problem for people and I would love to hear some other opinions. What do you think?

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In the second, major gay-rights victory this year, the state high court said religious physicians must obey a state law that bars businesses from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.

“The 1st Amendment’s right to the free exercise of religion does not exempt defendant physicians here from conforming their conduct to the . . . antidiscrimination requirements,” Justice Joyce L. Kennard wrote for the court.

The decision stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Guadalupe T. Benitez, an Oceanside lesbian who lives with her partner and wanted to become pregnant with donated sperm.

Benitez contended that Dr. Christine Brody, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group in Vista, told her that her religious views prevented her from performing an intrauterine insemination on a lesbian.

Another physician at the clinic, Dr. Douglas Fenton, later told Benitez that the staff was uncomfortable helping her conceive a child and advised her to find another doctor outside the medical group, Benitez said.

I think these doctors should have their medical credentials torn away from them. Religion should not be allowed to effect doctors. This seems like an extremely dangerous door to open. Will hospitals now be divided between sexual orientation like they once were by race?

A trial court ruled for Benitez, but an appeals court overturned that decision in favor of the doctors. After the case landed in the state high court, civil libertarian groups sided with Benitez and religious groups, including Jewish rabbis and Islamic clergy, argued that doctors were entitled to disavow treatments that conflicted with their religion.

Benitez, 36, and now the mother of three, said she has been pursuing her case for 10 years.

“This isn’t just a win for me personally and for other lesbian women,” she said. “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.”

Kenneth R. Pedroza, who represented the doctors, predicted that many doctors would simply refuse to do the insemination procedure at all. Pedroza said Brody did not violate state law because it did not bar discrimination on the basis of marital status when the 1999 incident occurred. The law has since been amended.

Asked whether Brody would have done the procedure on a married lesbian couple, Pedroza said: “I don’t know.”

Source: LA Times

Photo by happysnappr

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