Faith & Medicine: can they coexist?

On Wedesday, May 28th, the California Supreme Court heard oral arguments on what Advocates' General Counsel, Robert Tyler, calls "one of the most important cases in the nation."

In 2001, Dr. Christine Brody and Dr. Doug Fenton, doctors specializing in women's reproductive health at North Coast Women's Medical Group, found themselves defendants in a lawsuit when a lesbian patient accused them of discrimination based on her sexual orientation. As a Christian, Dr. Brody would not artificially inseminate the patient, as her religious convictions precluded her from doing so for any unmarried woman. Despite the fact that the patient was referred and then successfully inseminated elsewhere, she sued the doctors and the health center.

Now, nearly seven years after the initial filing of the lawsuit, the California Supreme Court convened to hear arguments regarding the question the court posited to counsel last year: "Does a physician have a constitutional right to refuse on religious grounds to perform a medical procedure for a patient because of the patient's sexual orientation, or [does state law] preclude such discrimination in the provision of services notwithstanding the physician's religious beliefs?" In other words, what is the State of California more interested in protecting: an individual's right to religious expression or an individual's sexual orientation?

Much is at stake in this precedent-setting case. Seven exhaustive years have passed, and now California's Supreme Court has been called upon to determine the hierarchy of values in the State of California and whether or not a person can exercise his or her faith in the workplace.

The court will issue a decision by late August.