Should have seen this earlier, but I didn't hear about this 8/18 case until yesterday. Physicians refused to perform an artificial insemination procedure on a patient because she was a lesbian, arguing that it was against their religious beliefs. Nice. They lost, with the court arguing that you can't pick and choose which laws you want to follow based on your religious beliefs. Their are laws against discrimination in for-profit businesses. Physicians argued that if it wasn't jeopardizing public safety or licentious, they should be able to argue their religion prevented them from a a certain procedure.
The best part is that after the whole thing started to unravel on them, they argued that they were discriminating against the woman because she was unmarried, not based on their religious beliefs. Stay classy, San Diego.
Why even have the public safety provision. I aspire one day to be a doctor, who looks deeply into the eyes of my patients and merely tells them "this is God's will." I won't even need to go to med school.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Well, the libertarian in me (no thanks to Briggs) would say why would we care if someone decides that they don't want to help a lesbian or unmarried woman have a baby because of religious beliefs? Then I think back to when the Afrikaner in South Africa said their religious beliefs said that they were the chosen people, and therefore the blacks must be subservient to them, and, yeah, that sets me straight once more. One could say that's unfair, since we're using examples of terrible discrimination in the past to justify laws that stop one from not so terrible discrimination in the present. Well, tough $#!+. They ruined it for the rest of us. Deal with it.
On the other hand, I'm not sure why the woman went back after the doctor told her that she wouldn't perform a particular procedure on her for religious reasons. That is what I believe is called a "red flag". Not even the assurances that another doctor in the office might be able to help her instead would have kept me anywhere near that place.
Well, while the facts of this case may not seem "terrible" discrimination, it is easy to see how they could be.
In addition to your example, which crossed my mind, it is easy enough to picture a doctor who is unwilling in an ER to treat the gun shot wound of a lesbian woman with an argument that it is against his religious beliefs to touch someone who is a sinner, unclean or a servant of the devil. I acknolwedge that this is not such a case, but if you can't practice medicine, then don't practice medicine.
Post a Comment