Article: May Doctors Refuse Infertility Treatments to Gay Patients?

This is an interesting article. (Requires free sign up.)

I found my opinion pinging back and forth throughout. I'm opposed to all forms of discrimination, and I'm particularly sensitive to discrimination against queer people. And yet I hear the argument that health care providers should not be forced to violate their personal ethics - or at least not where alternative services/providers exist. Where there is no reasonable alternative, I think you've got to do the job you've been hired to do, regardless of your own squicks.

Ultimately though my position is firm: sexual orientation and gender expression are rightfully grounds on which no one may discriminate against an individual, any more than they may discriminate on the grounds of skin colour or apparent gender.

(I am very tempted to take on the notion of "bona fide religious objections" - does being a "Christian" really get you off the hook? - but will refrain as I'm likely to get out of my depth very quickly, and others have done it better. But even if they're bona fide, gee, if you're a member of the Klan, can you refuse to treat Black people as a matter of religious conscience?)

I don't expect to see this kind of thing at a Canadian clinic at the moment. The extent to which religion plays a part in US society is pretty foreign to the way we generally do things. However social trends do seem to creep over the border, so we do well to keep an eye on things. In looking around for links for this post, I was flabbergasted to find an article on Ask.com about how to deal with being an atheist in the office, and how you can handle things like office prayer meetings. Office prayer meetings? For real? I'm gobsmacked. I live in an environment where religion is considered a very private matter - no one else's business, and not something you either hide or fling around publicly. It just *is*. However I'm now getting into the territory of another post entirely, and one that probably doesn't belong in this blog.

So back to the matter at hand. Should health care providers have the right to limit their practice? What constitutes acceptable grounds for doing so? And is sexual orientation ever an acceptable ground?

I'd love to hear what others think.