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 Calif.
Supreme Court To Hear Lesbian Fertility Case
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: May 2, 2008 - 11:00 am ET
(San Francisco, California) The
California Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on May 28 in
the case of woman who was denied fertility treatments because
she is a lesbian and was not married.
The case began in 2001 when
Guadalupe Benitez filed suit against Drs. Christine Brody and
Douglas Fenton after they refused to artificially inseminate
her claiming to do so would violate their religious beliefs.
A lower court ruled that the
doctors could not use religion as a defense but in 2005 a
state appeals court struck down the ruling saying that the
doctors were within their rights because they based their
decision on Benitez's unmarried status and that discrimination
based on marital status is not prohibited by state law.
Represented by Lambda Legal Benitez appealed to
the California Supreme Court.
Benitez alleges that after she
had received 11 months of preparatory treatment from the North
Coast Women's Care Medical Group clinic in San Diego, and at
"the critical and brief moment when Benitez needed to be
inseminated", Brody and Fenton refused to inseminate her.
Both Brody and Fenton said that
because of their personal religious beliefs about gay people,
they would not administer the treatment Benitez had been
promised. In court papers the doctors also said they object to
treating unmarried heterosexual women and they claim that
their fundamentalist Christian beliefs exempt them from
California's civil rights laws.
The doctors contended they
denied treatment because Benitez and her registered domestic
partner of 15 years were not married. Lambda legal maintained
she was denied because of her sexual orientation, not her
marital status.
When the appeal was filed with
the Supreme Court Lambda argued that marital status was being
used as a smokescreen.
"Doctors with antigay
religious beliefs are not excused from obeying the laws that
govern all of us," said Lambda legal attorney Jennifer C.
Pizer at the time. "That our client's doctors felt that
they could defy well-established California law and medical
ethics is very worrisome for all of us in a civil
society."
©365Gay.com 2008
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