California Supreme Court to Hear Case of Lambda Legal Lesbian Client Denied Infertility Treatment by Christian Fundamentalist Doctors
The California Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday, May 28, 2008 in the case of an Oceanside lesbian whose doctors at North Coast Women's Care Medical Group denied her fertility treatments based on their religious beliefs.
Lambda Legal represents Guadalupe "Lupita" Benítez. In 1999, her doctor referred her to North Coast for fertility treatments. After eleven months of preparatory treatments, doctors finally admitted they would not inseminate her because she is a lesbian. The doctors claim a right not to comply with California's civil rights law because they are fundamentalist Christians and they object to treating a lesbian patient the same way they treat other patients.
In late 2004, Benitez won a legal ruling in the trial court saying that doctors in a for-profit medical group must comply with California’s antidiscrimination laws and treat all patients equally, whatever the doctors’ personal religious beliefs may be; in other words, if they provide a certain type of treatment, they must provide it equally to all patients. The doctors asked the Court of Appeal in San Diego to review that ruling and the court ruled in the doctors’ favor.
Jennifer C. Pizer is the lead attorney on the case for Lambda Legal. She is joined by co-counsel Jon B. Eisenberg, a leading appellate specialist, Robert Welsh, Seph McNamara and Lee Fink of O'Melveny & Myers LLP in Los Angeles, and Albert Gross of Solana Beach, CA. The case is Benitez v. North Coast Women's Care Medical Group.
posted by thomas c jackson @ 2:27 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
If they didn't want to treat her, why did they take her case in the first place? Okay, so maybe they didn't know when they took the case that she was a lesbian, but you can't tell me it took them 11 months to find out??? And if even if it did take that long, why not just find a reason not to treat her anymore and let her go as a patient?
The Answers, IMO:
1. They didn't know she was a lesbian.
2. Once they did find out, they figured they could string her along, get all the money they could get, and then she'd finally give up since nothing was happening, and she'd leave. You know *they* say that we have no sense of commitment anyway.
3. Because this way they get publicity, and they'll get more right-wing, fundie patients coming to them. So what if they put a lesbian through hell, denying her a right that they wouldn't deny any other woman, (that of possibly having a child)she's just a lesbian, she don't count.
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