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Posted on 01/05/2008 10:01:16 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
"God made you a man." That's what Charlene Hastings said she was told when she called to inquire about breast enlargement surgery at Seton Medical Center, a Catholic hospital in Daly City. Now the San Franciscan is suing the hospital, claiming officials there discriminated against her because she had a sex-change operation.
Hastings, 57, had already had the major surgery she needed to become a woman. She had chosen a San Francisco plastic surgeon with privileges at Seton to perform the breast augmentation in October 2006. But the surgeon, Dr. Leonard Gray, told her that Seton no longer allowed him to operate on transgender patients, Hastings said. "It's a blatant case of discrimination."
The lawsuit pits the rights of transgendered people against the hospital's rights to operate according to its religious principles.
State law allows religiously affiliated hospitals to refuse to provide abortions, but there is no specific religious exemption allowing hospitals to deny elective surgery to transgender people. Seton is a member of the Daughters of Charity Health System, which operates five Catholic hospitals in California.
"Seton Medical Center provides medically necessary services to all individuals," Nikels said in a prepared statement. "However, the hospital does not perform surgical procedures contrary to Catholic teaching; for example, abortion, direct euthanasia, transgender surgery or any of its related components." The hospital did not comment directly on the lawsuit.
Wertz thinks Seton's policy violates the Unruh Act, a state law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender, gender identity or sexual orientation. "There's simply no religious exemption in the Unruh Act," Wertz said.
"This is a civil rights story," he said. "It is about transgender people being able to use businesses and other facilities on an equal basis as other people. If you took out 'transgender' in the lawsuit
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Hastings, 57, had already had the major surgery she needed to become a woman. Radical cutitoffomy, to be precise.
who did he/she use as the doctor.....lorenea bobbitt?????
Exactly right. However, you can bet that if this hospital were some other “faith,” the ACLU would be doing backflips to ensure that the hospital need not perform procedures in conflict with thier sincerely held beliefs. After all, even Target employees have the right not to handle bacon and pork chops at the checkout stand because it’s “against their religion.” No, this is yet another attempt to force Catholic hospitals to compromise their beliefs or risk losing Medicaid and Medicare funding (though I am not implying that this poor soul’s implant is government funded). Many Catholic hospitals have shut down their ob/gyn departments so as not to be forced to do abortions, and all are in the dilemma of what do do about emergency contraception. But if you are another religion your beliefs are not just respected, they are pandered to.
Uh, BS. It's one more attempt by the idiots on the left to use the courts to achieve what they can't achieve via referendum or in the legislature.
So...breast implants are a civil right. Okay.
I thought the picture of Kerry and Edwards went with the story.
Funny, I missed that amendment in the Bill of Rights. Anybody seen that missing amendment?
Sure I would, if I owned a freak show :)
There was a big Catholic pro-family (that is, anti-”gay marriage,” “transgendered whatevers,” and “all abortion all the time”) demonstration in Madrid, Spain, a few days ago. The Socialist powers that be are now demanding that the Spanish bishops apologize!
Since the Pope issued a message from Rome congratulating the organizers, I guess they’ll be demanding his apology next.
I bet that Rudy would!!
You got that right
So THAT’S why my employees wanted the day off the other day!
I keed, I keed....
First of all, he’s not a woman.
what really makes me mad is these “females” get bigger breasts than some us real women.....LOL!!!
LOL. Now that’s a complaint I never expected to hear!
Agreed. He could simply go back to the hospital that provided him the sex-change operation. So there’s an agenda here that’s more than just the breast enlargement.
Sorry; I don’t buy it. Have your DNA tested if you can’t figure out what sex you are by LOOKING. If you have difficulty dealing with who you are, continue to seek professional help. I have no sympathy for those who are unwilling to accept reality and move on.
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