By Julia Cheever
May 27, 2008
The California Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in San Francisco Wednesday in a case that pits the religious freedom rights of doctors against the civil rights of lesbians.
Guadalupe Benitez, a lesbian mother from Oceanside, north of San Diego, is suing a medical clinic and two doctors for refusing to give her fertility treatments in 2000.
The doctors gave Benitez preliminary treatments for 11 months beginning in 1999 but declined to carry out the final procedure she wanted, artificial insemination, on the ground that it was against their religious beliefs.
Benitez and her partner, Joanne Clark, eventually went to another doctor not included in Benitez’ health insurance plan and became parents of a son through in-vitro fertilization.
They say that going outside her insurance network cost thousands of dollars more.
Benitez’ lawsuit contends she was discriminated against on the basis of her sexual orientation in violation of the state’s Unruh civil rights law, which bans bias by business establishments.
Jennifer Pizer, a lawyer for Benitez, said on Friday, “This case is about whether people engaged in business can opt out of following civil rights law on the basis of religion, or whether they must follow the law equally regardless of religious beliefs.”
Lawyers for the clinic, known as the North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group, and the doctors contend that physicians can accommodate the law and their religious beliefs by referring a patient to a different doctor.
Attorney Kenneth Pedroza wrote in a brief to the court, “A physician has the right to refuse to perform a medical procedure based on the physician’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”
The high court will decide whether the doctors can raise a religious freedom defense in a not-yet-scheduled trial on Benitez’ lawsuit in San Diego County Superior Court.
The panel will have three months to issue a written ruling after hearing arguments at the State Building on Wednesday.
The doctors say that their religious scruples were based on the fact that Benitez was not married rather than her sexual orientation, and that marital status discrimination was not illegal at the time.
Benitez’ lawyers contend that the doctors in earlier proceedings said that the cause of their action was based on sexual orientation that they later changed their argument, and that in any case, marital status discrimination was covered by the state’s civil rights law.
The Hunger Site
No Comments
Comments for State High Court to Hear Case
Pitting Religious Freedom Against Civil Rights are now closed.