SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- The California Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in San Francisco Wednesday in a case that pits the religious freedom rights of doctors against the civil rights of lesbians.
A lesbian mother from Oceanside, north of San Diego, is suing a medical clinic and two doctors for refusing to give her fertility treatments in 2000.
Despite receiving 11 months of preliminary treatments, doctors declined to artificially inseminate her, on the ground that it was against their religious beliefs.
Guadalupe Benitez and her partner eventually went to another doctor not included in either woman's health insurance plan and became parents of a son through in-vitro fertilization.
They are suing under the state's Unruh civil rights law, which includes sexual orientation under its protections. They say the refusal by doctors at the North Coast Women's Care Medical Group cost them thousands of dollars because they had to seek another doctor.
Lawyers for the clinic contend doctors have a right to accommodate their religious beliefs by referring a patient to a different doctor.
The Supreme Court must decide whether the clinic's lawyers can introduce a religious defense at the trial, which will take place in San Diego County Superior Court.
That trial has not been scheduled, pending the Supreme Court's decision.
(gma)
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