The self-appointed breeder police in the Indiana legislature had to withdraw their turkey baster bill last week in the face of public outcry. Too bad Californians have to turn to the courts, for it seems some doctors took matters into their own hands, refusing a lesbian woman medical care involving artificial insemination.

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A California appeals court heard arguments Tuesday in the case of a woman who sued her doctors after they refused to artificially inseminate her, allegedly because she is gay.

The physicians are appealing a ruling that prevented them from raising religious freedom as a defense in the test of whether doctors can deny treatment to gays and lesbians.

Attorney Carlo Coppo told California's Fourth District Court of Appeal that religion is relevant to deciding whether his clients wrongly denied fertility treatment to Guadalupe Benitez.

Oh my! Not only does she reject the gift of a man's affections, but she also bears the guilt of being Hispanic. The judge established breeder court just in time.

In her suit, Benitez claims that Brody told her in 1999 that her religious beliefs prevented her from helping a homosexual conceive a child by artificial insemination, but that other physicians at the practice would be able to help her.

The next year, Benitez said, she was told that both Brody and Fenton were unable to help her because they did not feel comfortable with her sexual orientation.

The doctors contend they denied treatment because Benitez and her registered domestic partner of 15 years were not married.

Oh, well, that's okay, right? I mean, women shouldn't have the right to bear bastards now, should they?

A Superior Court judge dismissed the case in 2001 on grounds that federal rules covering employer health plans bar state civil rights actions. In 2003, the San Diego appeals court overturned the decision.

When the case returned to Superior Court, Judge Ronald Prager ruled before trial that the doctors could not use religious freedom as a defense because there is no such exemption under the state's anti-discrimination law, setting the stage for Tuesday's arguments.

Is this the first case to involve the Mengele appeal? I mean, if doctors are to be bound not by law but by personal dogma, Dr. Mengele would have a good case, no? If these "religious" doctors win their case, one potential consequence is the opening of clinics that refuse patients based on any personal trait or lifestyle, even if legal. Of course, they don't care about that. They just want to be comfortable in their bigotry, while still pretending to serve the public.

I don't know, but it seems to me that if you have religious reasons not to do your job fairly and without prejudice, you have no business in medicine. You might try politics. No need for ethics there.

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