Letters to the Editor
Leeandra Nolting
Published Letters: 434 Editor's Choice: 18
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I'm certainly not saying lesbian=bad mother...
[Read the article: In California, docs can't say, "Sorry, you're gay"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...but this case brings up some sticky points.
Artificial insemination, if successful, creates a whole new little person who will have to be cared for and raised to adulthood. Does a doctor offering this service have the right to refuse to perform it if he/she believes that the person in question would not provide a good, stable home for the child?
Artificial insemination (at least in this particular case) doesn't actually "treat" anything, other than the desire to become pregnant by means other than heterosexual intercourse.
This is NOT a doctor who refused emergency care to a lesbian. This is NOT a doctor who refused to correct a congenital tubal deformity on a lesbian because that would enable her to become pregnant and he thought lesbians shouldn't have children.
This is a doctor who refused to artificially inseminate someone because he didn't believe it would be in the best interest of the resulting child.
We all can disagree with this particular doctor's opinion, but I DO think it's in the best interest of all of us to give doctors offering ELECTIVE medical care some personal and professional discretion, especially when that particular elective medical care is DESIGNED to do nothing more or less than make a whole 'nother person.
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@Chris-C
[Read the article: What does it mean to be an "anti-feminist"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The answer to your question about W.I.C. is rooted in simple biology. W.I.C. was designed so that poor pregnant/nursing mothers (as well as their babies and young children of both sexes), got their required nutrients, particularly calcium and Vitamin D.
The main goal of W.I.C. was healthy infants and children. The women were included because maternal malnutrition during pregnancy/breastfeeding is a leading contributor to health problems in babies. Back when W.I.C. was founded, it wasn't uncommon for poor children to get rickets and for poor women to lose a tooth for every baby they had. Since men neither become pregnant nor nurse babies, and since (by benefit of age) rickets-prevention wasn't much of an issue, they weren't included.
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hard cases make bad law...
[Read the article: In California, docs can't say, "Sorry, you're gay"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not claiming this woman was unfit in any way, nor did the doctor claim she was medically unfit to bear a child. But there are real ethical questions involved in providing/ refusing elective treatment, and it's politically-correct foolhardiness to pretend there aren't.
If a healthy woman with an extensive history of failed marriages came to a doctor for artificial insemination, should he/she consider refusing service if he/she believed the child would grow up in an unstable environment?
What if this was a healthy married woman whose husband was abusive, and the doctor in good faith believed that he would also be abusive towards the child?
What of a woman with extensive financial problems?
I'm not arguing for eugenics or anything like that here, nor for laws against certain people getting AI. But I do think doctors need to have some latitude here. AI, as I pointed out before, at least in this case, doesn't actually "treat" anything. There was nothing medically wrong with this woman. She just wanted to get pregnant, and did not want to get pregnant by having sex with a man.
This is not a case of a pharmacist refusing to dispense Plan B and refusing to provide a referral to a pharmacy that will. Time is of the essence in that case. With AI, not so much. If one doc won't get you, what's the problem with getting on Google and finding one that will?
This woman didn't seem to have any trouble finding a doctor who WOULD artificially inseminate her, at least three times. So what, exactly, does this lawsuit accomplish? A doctor who would refuse to provide AI to a lesbian on religious grounds will get out of that particular practice before he/she will kowtow to a state ruling. Result: fewer doctors in that field for everyone.
Also, @Lulu, certainly there ARE people who should not become parents. That's just common sense. Most fertility specialists, adoption agencies, and social workers would agree with that, even if they disagreed about the specifics of what makes an unfit parent.