Posted on 08/03/2005 3:36:00 PM PDT by Former Military Chick
A California lesbian who sued her doctors for discrimination after they refused to artificially inseminate her is now fighting both them and the state's largest medical association over whether doctors should have the right to refuse treatment on religious grounds.
The California Medical Association has taken the position that, in addition to being able to choose which procedures they perform, doctors should in some situations be able to choose whom they treat.
A trial court judge ruled in 2003 that the doctors attending to Guadalupe Benitez of Oceanside could claim a religious exemption from performing the procedure on her and that decision is now on appeal before a San Diego appellate court.
A group of gay and minority rights organizations say in a court filing that siding with the 30,000-member medical association would pave the way for widespread discrimination under the guise of religion.
"If the position that's being promoted by the California Medical Association and the physicians in the case carries the day, then we've blown a hole in civil rights protections in the state of California," said Joel Ginsberg, executive director of the San Francisco-based Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, one of the 16 groups that filed a brief in Benitez's case.
Ginsberg offered the hypothetical examples of an Orthodox Jewish restaurant owner who refuses to allow men and women to sit together or a Muslim shop owner barring women who do not wear head coverings.
The medical association, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in May, softened its stance when its leaders learned last week 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 association's executive committee will discuss the issue at a meeting Monday in Sacramento, he said.
But Jennifer Pizer, the lawyer for Benitez, said, "Whatever the motive was, whether marital status or sexual orientation, it's an issue of whether religion gives people a free pass to ignore laws that apply to everybody else. Any type of discrimination that today is illegal, it would be open season on any of those because religious freedom deems it not discrimination anymore."
Benitez said her doctor told her and her partner of 11 years during their first visit to the clinic in 1999 that she would not perform a certain type of artificial insemination on Benitez because Benitez is gay.
Benitez said she was speechless at first but the doctor then told her that another physician at North Coast Women's Care Medical Group - the only fertility clinic covered by Benitez's health plan - would perform the insemination when the time came.
"After she said that, I said, 'OK, we're OK. I respect your decision, as long as you're saying another physician will help me.' But obviously that wasn't the case," Benitez said.
Benitez's doctor treated her extensively, but when it came time to inseminate her with a syringe inserted into her uterus, all of the doctors at the clinic refused.
Whether they did that on the grounds of her sexual orientation or marital status is important because the Unruh Act, which protects the civil rights of Californians in business and commercial settings, protects people from discrimination based on sexual orientation but not marital status.
The California Medical Association has argued that the doctor had the right to refuse Benitez treatment because of a religious conviction against unwed parents.
Once the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Diego rules whether the doctor can make that argument the case will return to Superior Court for trial.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.)
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Our next SITUATION, from Southern California, pits a doctor against her lesbian patient. That‘s after the doctor refused to artificial inseminate the woman, claiming a religious exemption from performing a procedure. Now a gay group is suing the doctor and the state‘s largest medical association for discrimination.
Now, I see why they‘re mad. But the bottom line here is, you can‘t compel a physician perform a procedure he or she is opposed to morally. I just don‘t see how you can do that. I just don‘t see how the government can say, you may be opposed to this, but we‘re going to force you to do it. There‘s nothing liberal about that. That‘s authoritarian.
CROSBY: Give me a break. What‘s appalling in this case, I‘m truly middle of the road. But I think it is shocking, he basically said in depositions later—he goes back to the fact she wasn‘t married—that was the real reason. But then he said the lesbian issue.
Give me a break. He‘s a doctor. If this is what he‘s supposed to do and what the state is saying he should do—
MADDOW: And if were a tonsillectomy and this doctor said I‘m not going to perform a tonsillectomy on this woman because she‘s a lesbian. Is that ok?
CARLSON: I would say the doctor has a right—isn‘t the Left always saying it‘s up to the doctor and the conscious and the conscious of the patient. It ought to be up to the conscious of the dr. It‘s a sole practioner that could make the decisions.
MADDOW: What if a person is bleeding on a hospital bed? He going to say I‘m not going to operate because she‘s a lesbian?
CARLSON: You don‘t draw the line. If this doctor is not an employee of the government, you can‘t tell him which job he has to perform and which job he can‘t?
CROSBY: But this was through her health care process. She was part of this healthcare system.
CARLSON: Well, first of all, she got the procedure done somewhere else, which is not even germane to the principle of it.
(CROSS TALK)
MADDOW: The standard historically is that a physician can decide not to do a particular kind of procedure because he or she doesn‘t want to.
CARLSON: That‘s right.
MADDOW: You can‘t decide which patient you‘re going to do it on or not. That‘s discrimination. It‘s the same reason I can‘t walk into a restaurant—
(CROSS TALK)
MADDOW: If I walk into a restaurant and a person who owns the restaurant says I‘m not going to serve you a meal because you, Rachel, are gay. That person can‘t do that, because that‘s discrimination. That‘s why we have the—
CROSBY: Maybe they don‘t like blondes. Give me a break.
CARLSON: In the end you can‘t force someone to do something he‘s morally opposed to if he doesn‘t work for the government.
CROSBY: Then you know what then, don‘t be a doctor. Also if you are going to be a doctor, have a big sign out saying I‘ll only take patients who do X. Make it clear.
CARLSON: Make it clear, but it sounds like this physician, who is a woman, did make it clear. She‘s still being sued by a group that wants to force her, ram it down her throat. They cannot call themselves liberal. There is nothing liberal about that. Liberalism is allowing people to do what they think is right.
(CROSS TALK)
MADDOW: Could a restaurant owner say I will not serve gay people?
CARLSON: It‘s prohibited by law. I believe that private organizations ought to be able to make their own decisions, however repugnant they are. However much I disagree with them you can‘t force people to do things.
(CROSS TALK)
CROSBY: But this was part of her healthcare plan.
MADDOW: Are you OK with the segregated lunch counter?
CARLSON: I‘m totally, totally, morally opposed to it!
MADDOW: OK, but you defend the right to do it.
CARLSON: I‘m not defending the rights in this case. You‘re not going to suck me into that.
(CROSS TALK)
MADDOW: But what about—
CARLSON: Hold on. Let me you asked me a question. Slow t down.
MADDOW: OK, let me clarify when you are done.
CARLSON: Let me answer. I won‘t be pulled into a false analogy to the civil rights movement, where I sound like Bull Connor (ph). I‘m stipulating that ahead of time.
Let me just say, again, a doctor should never be compelled to perform a procedure he or she finds morally repugnant. Even if we disagree; even if I disagree, you disagree, you disagree, it‘s a private doctor. You can‘t force him to do something against his conscience.
MADDOW: Tucker, if that doctor performs inseminations.
CARLSON: Right.
MADDOW: And that doctor will perform an insemination on a straight person but not a gay person, is that ok?
CARLSON: If that doctor says, as this doctor did, it is against my religion to do this—and by the way, I don‘t want to inseminate a single parent, then I say you can‘t force him. I can say it‘s outrageous. I can say it is wrong, maybe I will say it‘s wrong, but you can‘t make him.
(CROSS TALK)
CROSBY: I say he gets out of the business. I say he‘s in the wrong profession.
MADDOW: The doctor said in a sworn deposition, I won‘t do this because the patient is gay. Marital status is a complete red herring and so therefore—
CARLSON: Hold on, we don‘t know it‘s a red herring.
MADDOW: The doctor admitted in a sworn deposition, I did not perform this procedure because the patient is gay.
(CROSS TALK)
CARLSON: Well, let me just say, for the record, the California Medical Association is taking the position, this is not a crackpot group of religious extremists, it‘s the California Medical Association, which has fought for gay rights in medicine, is saying the doctor didn‘t want to do it because she didn‘t want to inseminate a single mother. That‘s their position.
CROSBY: They‘re saying it‘s OK. I also take issue with them.
MADDOW: You can‘t get out of saying you are right or wrong by saying somebody else says it too.
CARLSON: I think we‘re making progress, but my position remains unchanged. You can‘t force people to act against their own conscious.
MADDOW: You‘re wrong.
I think it is wrong to force them to do that, perhaps I am in the minority on this but a doctor should be allowed to choose who their patients are.
You're right. And I don't miss Sweet Polly Purebred one bit since she left Fox, do you?
This is confusing. Who the heck is "Crosby"? What does this have to do with Rita Cosby?
"This is confusing. Who the heck is "Crosby"? What does this have to do with Rita Cosby?"
Thought the same thing on first pass.
PING
As I have said, why cannot a doctor choose to not care for a patient.
If a patient abuses drugs, doctor shops, the doctor can say adios. If a doctor feels they cannot perform surgery and the patient insists, they go for another opinion.
If a doctor feels that insemination of a lesbian is not something he/she feels comfortable doing than I say bravo. Just like the pharmacists who disagree with providing birth control pills.
If this is their choice than the consequence may be of word of mouth and they lose their business. Doctors are to do know harm. But, these are private folks and should be able to say yay or nay.
imho
I want to run an ad on MSNBC that says you screwed up big when you gave your interpretation of the Supreme Court decision in 2000 about the Florida ballots. MSNBC will not run that ad. If they will deny me the free speech I am entitled to then they need to not be a broadcaster.
I used to like you, but your arguement here is the lamest I have ever seen. It sounds as tho' you took the contrary position just to have someone take the contrary position.
In a million - no, make that a billion - years, that's a term I never would have used to describe the breathless one.
Is that Tucker Carlson? That twerp makes me twinge whenever I see him. The damage that he does to conservatism is just appaling. Richard Mellon Scaife should pay him to get him off of the air.
If a doctor can be forced to artificially inseminate a patient, can he then be forced to do abortions? Very scary situations can evolve from this.
Please read the second part of the interview. Rita Cosby use to do the Big Story on FOX, on the weekends.
Her pro. attitude went south for me when she sucked up to the ma and pa Jackson.
She is now with MSNBC. Good riddance.
Just a clarification there is a show on MSNBC, called the Situation. Cosby was a guest, promoting her new show, and one of the topics and doctor who refused to inseminate a lesbian, and she is now miffed.
Cosby seems to think a doctor cannot refuse care and further thinks the doctor should leave the profession.
She also called herself a middle of the road kind of gal. She thinks MJ was not guilty, give her the hook, she is now MSNBCs problem.
1 All discussion shows involving reporters sitting around pretending to talk to one another are unwatchable and unwatched.
2 The media's downfall can be traced to when they started interviwing each other rather than going out and actually covering the news and real people who do things.
I'm surprised that doctors treat patients who do not have a "release of liability" statement signed.
Yes it does, it is am important subject and Cosby's remarks just pushed me over the edge.
There is no way a doctor should have to do something they feel morally is incorrect. If you do not like him, than let folks know. He is a private provider, who needs this headache.
Jesus said: "And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore, they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." -from THE BIBLE: Matthew 19:4-6
Didn't really read the post but I hated Crosby on Fox, glad she's gone.
Also, for Rita Cosby, good riddance, and don't let the door hit you in the ever expanding butt on your way out the door.
This is but a little preview of what would happen if, God forbid, HillaryCare ever comes to America.
I also think I'd refuse to inseminate on the basis of the legal difficulties it could cause me opening me up to lawsuit.
I tend to agree. This wasn't an emergency situation where the doctor refused to treat her because she was a lesbian.
This was a purely elective procedure and I think the doctor has every right to refuse to perform such procedure. She's free to go to another doctor.
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