The following wonderful news was released tody by Lambda Legal:
Lambda Legal has won another great victory for LGBT equality before the California Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision today, the Court ruled in favor of a lesbian who was denied infertility treatment by Christian fundamentalist doctors on the basis of her sexual orientation.
Lambda Legal represented Guadalupe “Lupita” Benitez who was referred to North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group — a facility that had an exclusive contract with her insurance plan — only to have the doctors discriminate against her after 11 months of preparatory treatments.
The doctors claimed they were exempt from the state’s civil rights law based on their fundamentalist Christian beliefs. The California Supreme Court disagreed and ruled that California’s state law prohibiting discrimination must be followed.
As Jennifer C. Pizer, our senior counsel who argued the case said, “Each of us is protected both in our religious beliefs and also from religiously-based discrimination in doctors’ offices and other commercial settings.”
Benitez, now a mother of three children, recognizes the implications of this type of discrimination: “It has taken nearly 10 years to get to this point, but it was worth it. Anyone could be the next target if doctors are allowed to pick and choose their patients based on religious views about other groups of people.”
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