Court to weigh impact of doctors' beliefs

The case ultimately could influence what California physicians tell their patients about their religious ideology.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. June 27, 2005.

A California appellate court will determine if two physicians can use religious beliefs as a defense in a case involving a woman who said the ob-gyns stopped treating her because of her sexual orientation.

The California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division One, will answer that question before the case can go to trial.

The matter stems from a case involving patient Guadalupe Benitez, who filed a lawsuit in 2001 alleging that doctors at North Coast Women's Care Medical Group Inc. in Vista refused to artificially inseminate her due to their religious beliefs.

Benitez said she was treated at the clinic for infertility for 11 months, then doctors refused to continue seeing her because she told one of them she was a lesbian, according to court documents. Benitez alleged that obstetrician-gynecologist Christine Brody, MD, told her she had religious-based objections to helping homosexuals conceive through artificial insemination but that other doctors at North Coast could perform the procedure.

Benitez claimed that ob-gyn Douglas Fenton, MD, also at the practice, later told her that Dr. Brody and other staff members were uncomfortable with her sexual orientation and would be unable to help her. Dr. Fenton referred Benitez to a fertility specialist and reproductive endocrinologist, according to court documents. Benitez later became pregnant.

In her lawsuit, Benitez claims that the North Coast doctors discriminated against her.

A trial court originally dismissed Benitez's case, but an appellate court reversed the decision and sent the case back.