Constitutional Law

Calif. High Court Says Anti-Discrimination Act Trumps First Amendment Rights

California physicians do not have a First Amendment right to deny medical treatment to lesbians and gay men, the California Supreme Court recently ruled. The Court in North Coast Women’s Care v. San Diego County ruled that the state’s Unruh Civil Rights Act trumped the religious liberty and free speech rights of physicians who refused to perform artificial insemination for a lesbian couple. The physicians declined performing the procedure, citing religious objections. Guadalupe T. Benitez then sued the hospital, arguing that her rights under the state’s civil rights law were violated. California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act states that “All persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal, an no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, or medical condition are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever.” In 2005, California lawmakers amended the act to include a prohibition against sexual orientation discrimination.

The physicians with the North Coast hospital countered that their free speech and religious liberty rights exempted them from complying with the state’s anti-discrimination law. The state’s high court, however, didn’t buy their arguments. Citing federal court precedent, the Court held that “a religious objector has no federal constitutional right to an exemption from a neutral and valid law of general applicability on the ground that compliance with that law is contrary to the objector’s religious beliefs.”

In this case, the California Supreme Court concluded that the state’s Civil Rights Act is a “valid and neutral law” that applies to all people, regardless of their religious beliefs. “As relevant in this case,” the Court stated, “it requires business establishments to provide ‘full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services’ to all persons notwithstanding their sexual orientation. Accordingly, the First Amendment’s right to the free exercise of religion does not exempt defendant physicians here from conforming their conduct to the Act’s antidiscrimination requirements even if compliance poses an incidental conflict with defendants’ religious beliefs.”

For an in-depth analysis of the debate over health care professionals' refusals to provide medical services because of religious liberty or other concerns, see the ACS Issue Brief by R. Alta Charo, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. That brief, "Health Care Provider Refusals to Treat, Prescribe, Refer of Inform: Professionalism and Conscience" is here. 

Full post as published by ACS Blog on August 19, 2008 (boomark / email).