Legal News

Doctors' religious beliefs not a shield to deny treatment to LGBT patients

By Jason Siegel

Doctors can't use their religious beliefs as a shield to deny treatment lesbian, bisexual and gay folks, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously yesterday, The Recorder reported.

The case began in 2001 when two doctors claimed that they couldn't provide fertility treatments to a lesbian woman because she wasn't married. The doctors claimed they couldn't do it because they are Christian. The woman claimed that the treatment was refused because of her sexual orientation.

The ruling reversed the 2006 ruling by San Diego's Fourth District Court of Appeal that the doctors could use their religious objects as an affirmative defense at trial.

The opinion found that the doctor's violated the state's Unruh Civil Rights Act, finding that it extends to the medical profession.

The doctors in the case however can still offer evidence that they denied treatment because the woman was not married, rather than because of her sexual orientation, and the future cases could be avoided if they referred patients to other doctors without religious objections.

Read The Recorder's full story here

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on August 19, 2008 (boomark / email).