USA Today
DETROIT – Sitting in the pediatrician’s office with their 6-day-old daughter, the two moms couldn’t wait to meet the doctor they had picked out months before.
The Roseville, Mich., pediatrician – one of many they had interviewed – seemed the perfect fit: She took a holistic approach to treating children. She used natural oils and probiotics. And she knew they were lesbians.
But as Jami and Krista Contreras sat in the exam room, waiting to be seen for their newborn’s first checkup, another pediatrician entered the room and delivered a major blow: The doctor they were hoping for had a change of heart. After “much prayer,” she decided that she couldn’t treat their baby because they are lesbians. [Full text]
In a letter sent to the women following their meeting, reproduced in the news report, the physician said, “I felt that I would not be able to develop the personal patient doctor relationship that I normally do with my patients.” She apologized for having caused any hurt or angry feelings, and emphasized that they were always welcome in the clinic and could see other physicians there. The basis for the physician’s refusal is obviously connected to the lesbian relationship between the two women, but it does not appear to involve the elements of conscientious objection to treatment: a moral or religious conviction that it would be wrong to treat the child or to accept the child as a patient.