Okay, you're a fertility doctor and you believe in a skygod who tells you what you can and can't do as a doctor. For example, you can inseminate some people, but not others. Your god says inseminating Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, even followers of Wicca is fine just so long as they are not unwed members of the female persuasion or lesbian or anything in between.
What's with that? Obviously your god must not like unwed females and lesbians and does not want them to have any children unless they conceive the old fashioned way, which for a lesbian is a decidedly unattractive option.
And how did you come to the understanding that your god forbids you to inseminate unwed females and lesbians? Do you have a holy book in which such insemination is specified as a sin? Do the holy prelates in your religion who claim to speak for your god tell you that your god forbids doctors to inseminate unwed females and lesbians?
Maybe there's a special oath for such physicians like yourselves - a "hypocritical oath," which applies to certain really religious doctors; an oath whereby you promise to treat some folks so long as they have the proper marital status, the right color skin, speak the right language, go to the right church, and disavow actions thought to be inappropriate by your religious poohbahs? Does the hypocritical oath take precedence over the Hippocratic oath?
Lest you think this is all hypothetical game-playing, I refer you to the North Coast Women's Care Medical Group in California. Back in 1999 or thereabouts one Guadalupe Benitez from Oceanside, California filed a lawsuit against two doctors and the aforementioned clinic who refused to inseminate her because the faith of the doctors prohibited insemination on unwed females. The clinic and the doctors believe their refusal is justifiable due to the constitutional right to freedom of religion.
Benitez, on the other hand, claimed that she was denied the procedure, not because of her "civil status," e.g., unwed female, but because she is a lesbian.
In 2004, a trial court ruled that Benitez was in the right, but a year later an appeals court reversed that decision. Damn activist judges!
The doctors' lawyer claims that "creation and termination of life are two areas in medical care in which freedom of religion could be invoked."
Benitez' lawyer, on the other hand, argues that doctors can't pick and choose: "...refusal of treatment on religious grounds must apply to all medical cases, not on a selective basis," i.e., because one is homosexual.
The case is now on the way to the California Supreme Court. The extremist Christian right no doubt has their legal guns in place to go to war for god.
I suppose one of the first questions to ask is if these doctors have ever inseminated an unwed female previously. If so, their case goes out the window. We should also ask how they knew that Benitez was a lesbian. Did they ask specifically about her sexual orientation or did she volunteer that information?
Whatever legal and religious gobble-de-gook these doctors have wrapped themselves in, you have to wonder if maybe they're more about playing god than practicing medicine. Who the hell do they think they are to assume that either an unwed female or a lesbian can't be a terrific mother?
Who knows, the child of an unwed female or lesbian might grow up to be a real doctor and treat all people, regardless of marital status, race, creed, or sexual orientation!
A more complete discussion of this case is available here.
1 comment:
If a doctor refuses care to anyone, I would think the doctor should have a sign in his office that stats what can or cannot be done based on the beliefs, bias or opinions of the doctor. For what other reasons can a doctor refuse care? In that way patients have a choice to avoid that doctor. What if doctors simply do not like working on unmarried women for some reason? What if they don’t like some people? Where does it end. We already have Pharmacists that refuse to give birth control pills to customers based on their religion. What if butchers decide not to sell some cuts of meat because they believe them to be bad for you? What if plumbers or electricians start examining your reasons for remodeling your home? I think the list could go on forever. Either you serv the public or you don’t. One can avoid some field of work if it is offensive. The public is entitled to equal service.
Bob Poris
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