Last month we pointed to a case in which a woman in California was heading to the state supreme court after being denied the right to get in vitro fertilization simply because she is a lesbian. Arguments in that case were heard last week and a decision by the supreme court is still pending.
The patient was refused IVF by a doctor who believed that helping to impregnate a lesbian was so against her own moral and religious beliefs that she couldn't do it. The patient's lawyer summed up the issue succintly:
Jennifer Pizer said, "Doctors have the freedom, and rightly so, to pick their field and offer whatever procedures and protocols are appropriate for them," adding, "They do not have the freedom to discriminate against patients." >The California Supreme Court is not actually there to decide whether or not a doctor today is allowed to refuse IVF to a patient based on sexual orientation. Today, the law in the state is that businesses of all kinds can't refuse IVF to patients because of either marriage status or sexual orientation. However, that was not the case when the issue first happened for this woman so what the court will be reviewing is whether or not that doctor had the right to do that under the laws at the time that the case first occurred.
Question of the Day: Given that the laws are now changed, is this case a landmark case for IVF history and gay rights in California?
