California doctors can't refuse treatment to gays on religious grounds, court rules

By Maura Dolan - Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - Web Link
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August 19, 2008

Doctors may not discriminate against gays and lesbians in medical treatment, even if the procedures being sought conflict with physicians' religious beliefs, the California Supreme Court decided unanimously Monday.

In its second major decision advancing gay rights this year, the state high court ruled that religious physicians must obey a state law that bars businesses from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.

"The 1st Amendment's right to the free exercise of religion does not exempt defendant physicians here from conforming their conduct to the . . . antidiscrimination requirements," Justice Joyce L. Kennard wrote for the court.

The decision stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Guadalupe T. Benitez, an Oceanside lesbian who lives with her partner and wanted to become pregnant with donated sperm.

Benitez filed a suit after Dr. Christine Brody, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the North Coast Women's Care Medical Group in Vista, said she would not perform an intrauterine insemination. In her lawsuit, Benitez alleged that Brody said her religious views prevented her from providing the procedure to a lesbian.

Another physician at the clinic, Dr. Douglas Fenton, later told Benitez that the staff was uncomfortable helping her conceive a child and advised her to find another doctor outside the medical group, Benitez said.

The doctors denied the allegations. Brody said she would not perform the procedure on any unmarried woman, heterosexual or homosexual.

The state high court said the doctors' constitutional rights to freedom of religion did not trump the state antidiscrimination law because the state has a compelling interest in ensuring full and equal access to medical care.