Doctors deny lesbian moms insemination based on 'moral grounds'

[ccharles000]

This is playing with 'conscience', even while your feet are in the stirrups. It's utter bullsh*t. This case goes back to 2001 (I blogged about it here), when a lesbian couple, Guadalupe Benitez and her partner, Joanne Clark, wanted to have a child and went to the North Coast Women's Care Medical Groupi in Encinitas, CA for artificial insemination.

North Coast Women's Care Medical Group refused to provide intrauterine insemination services to Guadalupe Benitez, citing two reasons -- 1) she's not married (though she has a partner and they are in a domestic partnership in a state that recognizes them), and 2) she's a lesbian. This, the clinic said, violated the religious beliefs of the practictioners.

This is back in the news again as ABC revisits the discrimination same-sex couples receive when the "religious beliefs" clause trumps health services.

"In general, religious beliefs or gender orientation should not interfere with the rights of an individual to reproduce," said Dr. Sherman Silber, director of the Infertility Center of St. Louis at St. Luke's Hospital in St. Louis, Mo. "If a doctor doesn't want to care for a patient, the doctor has a right to decide who he or she is and isn't going to take care of. But that conflicts with the discrimination issue."

...A patient has the right to receive the best care possible from their chosen physician, said Dr. Siva Subramanian, professor of pediatrics and obstetrics at Georgetown University Hospital. But a physician has the right to personal beliefs and morals that may influence what they are willing to do medically.

Subramanian pointed out, however, that a physician's beliefs may conflict with state and federal laws governing medical practice -- laws that a licensed physician has agreed to comply with.

In all cases, a physician should make relevant personal beliefs known to patients during the first meeting, Subramanian said. And in cases where personal beliefs conflict with the law, physicians should be prepared to accept the consequences of standing by their beliefs.

By the way, in the case of Benitez and Clark, they were forced to go to North Coast because her insurance didn't cover any other facility -- add another case for health care reform to the pile, so turning them away at the start, an option open to doctors to avoid the conflict, would have been a civil rights violation.

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/13288/doctors-deny-lesbian-moms-insemination-based-on-moral-grounds

[Gormy Cuss]

1. Wouldn't that be "immoral grounds," doctors?

I guess those are doctors who took the Hypocritic Oath.

[Chulanowa]

2. It's simple as fuck

If something in a profession will offend your sense of morals or religious ethic... don't take that job. Don't see too many Jewish swineherds or Buddhist executioners, do you?