Jennifer Pizer, a lawyer for the gay rights group Lambda Legal Defence, said the case was the first in the US to allow a gay man or lesbian to sue doctors on allegations that treatment had been denied because of sexual orientation. The case has still to reach trial.What treatment was she being denied? Fertility treatment. Now, last I checked, fertility treatment was not a life or death issue. It isn't cardiac care. She isn't going to die if she doesn't have a baby.
She said the latest ruling would be appealed against at the California supreme court. "We fear this decision is going to worsen the confusion in the minds of the public about whether you can legally discriminate in the name of religion," Ms Pizer, who represents Ms Benitez, told Associated Press. "The bottom line is that you should not be able to treat patients in a discriminatory way."
The court ruled in favor of the doctors, by the way, who refused to treat her on religious grounds.
Since fertility treatments are optional and one can have a good quality of life without them, I agree with the doctors. Maybe she should try another doctor, hmm? It is a free market economy, you know. She did that anyway, and has a 3 year old.
If they were refusing to, say, go through with a liver transplant even though there was a qualified donor and all because she was a lesbian, then I would agree with Lambda. Denial of critical care based on gender, orientation, intelligence level, income, race, or political persuasion is wrong.
