Let me ask a small question: What’s wrong with this woman going to a public clinic where she knows it would be illegal to turn her away? As one commenter implied, maybe it’s better that she didn’t get the sperm from this ‘bigoted’ clinic. That’s obviously not the DNA she should want. Right?

Or, perhaps the lady went to this clinic specifically to make a big deal out of all of this, knowing that she would be turned away. Maybe this is all about a big media hype.

Also I think it’s funny that you want to place doctors in a special realm of those who don’t have the rights of other businessmen. Would you tell a stock trader that he had to trade in all markets? Or a contractor that he had to contract with every available sub-firm? Of course not. So why should doctors treat everyone despite the doctors’ personal preferences, morals, and ethical beliefs?

August 19th, 2008 at 12:58 pm

So, Bitbit, you’re on the side of the woman who was denied service due to her sexual orientation?

What does abortion have to do with artificial insemenation? Or are you just trying to create a straw-man argument for yourself?

I know you’re trying to get to the point that the government here tells the doctors what to do. It’s just that the doctors here are supposed to help people no matter their age, sex, nationality, religious preference or sexual orientation. Some of us are funny when a doctor puts their interests ahead of the patients when it is the doctor’s selfishness and bigotry…and nothing else…that is the source of it all. So if you think that is the source of “socialistic underpinnings”, than I guess we’re guilty of it…because you know, some of us don’t want to throw our ethics away for pure greed.

The U.S.’s system is not a free market specifically for the reasons about which we are talking. A pure free market system allows for social Darwinism and I doubt anyone really wants that. It would never allow for small business. So the U.S. has taken a capitalist system, democratized it, and then socialized it. We still lean more toward the capitalist side, but you cannot deny the socialistic underpinnings. And this instance just happens to prove that the government wants further control to the exclusion of individual freedoms: namely, the freedom to run my non-government sponsored business the way I want.

It’s people like you who “think” you know what socialism is, but your facts are wrong. A socialist government doesn’t allow a free market to exist. The fact that there are controls to allow fair business/medical practices wouldn’t exist in a socialist government, since it would be one system for every citizen. So your argument that the government can tell this clinic what it can/can’t do will exist in every democracy, because the doctors practice under a state license, dispense drugs under a DEA license and that the government has a checks and balances system to make sure these people can’t abuse patients…like in a free market system, which you want. Because, in a free market system, doctors who have no regulations or basic rules other than the freedom to make money, would have their practices above the patient’s basic rights.

If you think hiring laws and taxes are socialist…man, I feel sorry for you. I guess you’re a member of a local tax freedom group, support a flat tax and believe in some form of social Darwinism. Maybe you should stop fearing a failed political system at every turn and realize that what you want most is what everyone should really fear. Because what you want is this nation to adopt a Third World system, where the rich rule over the poor and throw the last 70 years of social and economic reforms away.

One thing I’ve noticed here is that Daryll tends to leave between 5:30 and 6:00 EDT.

He’s either blogging from work or prison or school or a library or some other public computer.

Oh, it might be his church; the place which he attends to learn hatred and intolerance and racism and homophobia.

In this situation, unless the clinic had contractually agreed to provide this service for this woman, they are under no obligation to do so. Also, unless they contracted to perform the service and only reneged after discovering that she was gay, there is no way to prove discrimination.

You call using the word socialism ‘bait and switch’ and it is inflammatory, but it is accurate in your description of how the government should interact with the private clinic in this case. You try and point out hiring laws and taxes as not being socialistic, but are they not government controls placed on private businesses? Maybe it is you who should read up on your Marx and Engels.

In what we’re talking about, the doctor didn’t have an excuse other that they didn’t want to give out the sperm based on personal objections, not based on any medical facts and/or objections that related to this. You simply can’t do that…that is called discrimination. In any private practice/business, if you do that you will be sued. If money changes hands in a private clinic, the doctor essentially has to perform what they are there for, because they are now bound by not only principle but by laws over this matter. By imposing their own beliefs and nothing else over the patient, they crossed the line. If you think that is socialism, you are in desperate need of a clue and definition of the term.

Now if it was government sponsored or supported, that’s a different issue. Here, the clinic was private and offering elective procedures. They can accept or reject anyone they want to. To allow the government to dictate to private businesses what they can or cannot do sounds much like socialism.

If you needed plastic surgery and the doctor saw a religious or political symbol on you, then threw you out on your ear…I bet you wouldn’t be taking it in stride.

A public clinic is something entirely different, but trying to tell a private clinic who they must treat and how would be like the government mandating what beliefs must be taught in church. A better example might be suing a Catholic health mission because they wouldn’t give you an abortion.

So in your guys’ “perfect god fearing world” you’d have no abortion and every woman carrying to term in this nation…even in circumstances of rape and incest? How “Christian” of you! Yeah, let me tell you bible thumpers how it’ll play out. If you think the that these kids could just be thrown into state custody and be adopted, look at the current state of adoptions in our nation. To say it’s a mess is to put it nicely. You Christian bigots think the “unwanted” would just be scooped up into your “loving” arms. That’s the biggest fallacy of your argument. You people don’t even adopt those that are out there currently…so why should we think by taking away a woman’s right to choose would make that any different?! What, do you only want cute 2-14 month old white babies to adopt?

Just so you know, those “tillers” could very much be in your hospitals and health care clinics with the rate of malpractice insurance costs and closing of them “other” clinics. The next “baby killer” could be touching you or one of your loved ones. Ah, the sweet irony of those you hate becoming the one you trust with your health. Doesn’t get any better.

So before you think you can get on the cross, remember…someone will have to treat your wounds you get from putting yourself up there!

It’s very far, the seasons are reversed and they drive on the left side of the road, but gay people are left in peace, and that’s all I want.

If Doctors are incapable of following the oath they took then they should voluntarily stop practicing medicine before they’re forced to do the right thing. If this doctor had been able to do the right thing to begine with, this case/verdict wouldn’t be necessary. Unfortunately, it is necessary to force some people to do the right thing.
August 19th, 2008 at 6:47 am

bit thought the oath, if not completely put aside, had been “downgraded.”

Wouldn’t the oath require at the very least some major adjustment in order to allow Dr’s to do abortions?

Do you suppose that abortionist Tiller out in Kansas displays the Hippocratic oath on the walls of his clinic? ( Kansas, and Tiller, sees about ninety percent of the partial birth abortions in the USA.)
Abortion is considerable violence to women, and this is especially true if the unborn is a female.

Guess the oath must have an exception clause.

Seems to bit that while artificial insemination falls under the heading of health care it also falls under the category of elective. Those posters above who made it sound as if Dr’s were denying live saving treatments to female homosexuals were more than a little transparent.

It can’t be that big a deal to artificially inseminate a woman anyway. bit use to date a woman who had inseminated a number of cows, and a miss, in the case of inseminating a cow, doesn’t threaten the life of a patient the way a botched abortion does.

Bet abortionist Tiller could do it. Wow! A full service shop.

“This is elective stuff, artificial insemination, right? I mean, fertility docs ain’t doing Emergency work…It’s not like they work with scalpels; they use fuuking turkey basters…

Nobody HAS to get pregnant, it’s not life-and-death.”

August 19th, 2008 at 8:49 am

I can see your perspective, up to a point.

How would you have felt if it was an inter-racial couple and the doctor claimed it was his religious belief that inter-racial couples should not bear children?

How would you feel if it were a straight couple that wasn’t married and the doctor claimed it was his religious belief that only married couples should have children?

Does the doctor in question have a notice in his office that says “I will apply my religious beliefs to determine if you should receive my services, and will deny services to anyone that I decide is unworthy of my services”?

Nobody HAS to get pregnant, it’s not life-and-death.

Buying a fetus is not unlike buying a Coke, innit? Nobody’s forcing you to buy that Coke, and the store can have a dress code which, if a customer does not meet it, permits service to be withheld. How many times have I seen in my life this sign: No shoes, no shirt no service? You usta see this sign everywhere: We reserve the right to refuse to serve anyone for any reason.

Why shouldn’t it be the same for doctors who are just practicing their ‘love?’ There was no emergency. The woman didn’t have to get her fetus from that Doc; she could have gone around the corner, to the next fetus store–they’re common as gas stations in SoCal, fer chrissake–and gotten herself fetus ‘prescription filled.’

I’m only being about half-snarky here…

“Fine it is a victory. But, who wants to be treated by a doctor who hates them?”

August 19th, 2008 at 5:42 am

It’s not about being treated by a doctor who personally dislikes you. It’s about requiring a doctor to follow the oath they swore to uphold. If they are incapable of upholding an oath they wore by blaming it on the religion they choose to follow, when will it stop?

Will they be allowed to not provide service to black people because their skin was “burnt by God” as a sign of his “disfavor”?

Will they be allowed to not provide service to people that divorce for reasons other than sexual infidelity, as Jesus said that is wrong?

If Doctors are incapable of following the oath they took then they should voluntarily stop practicing medicine before they’re forced to do the right thing. If this doctor had been able to do the right thing to begine with, this case/verdict wouldn’t be necessary. Unfortunately, it is necessary to force some people to do the right thing.

Patient: Yes, doctor…I started bleeding from the ear and I don’t know why. Can you help?

Doctor: I’m sorry, but it’s Easter in 10 minutes and I’ve mailed it in until Monday. Maybe our intern can diagnose your ailment while I have a ceremonial Peep fight in the lounge. Here…stick this Q-tip in your ear and see if it helps. By the way, are you gay? Because if you are I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave…NOW, before I get security in here!