Doctor refuses to treat 4-month-old baby because she has lesbian parents
A doctor has refused to treat a 4-month-old child, saying her religion had prevented her from being able to, because the parents are gay.
Bay Windsor was born to Michigan married couple Krista and Jami Contreras. After registering with Dr Vesna Roi, and making an appointment once Bay arrived, the couple arrived at the hospital.
On arrival, they were met by Dr Karam, who said: “I’ll be your doctor, I’ll be seeing you today because Dr. Roi decided this morning that she prayed on it and she won’t be able to care for Bay,” the couple recalled.
According to the couple, Dr Roi didn’t even attend the hospital that day, in order to avoid seeing them.
“It was embarrassing, it was humiliating and here we are, new parents trying to protect her,” Jami said. “And we know this happens in the world and we’re completely prepared for this to happen other places. But not at our six-day-old’s wellness appointment.”
“As far as we know Bay doesn’t have a sexual orientation yet so I’m not really sure what that matters,” Jami continued. “We’re not your patient – she’s your patient. And the fact is that your job is to keep babies healthy and you can’t keep a baby healthy that has gay parents?”
On looking for new paediatricians, the couple said they felt like they had to announce that they were a same-sex couple first, to avoid the same situation again.
After their story picked up traction on social media, and some in protest phoned the hospital, they finally received an explanation from Dr Roi.
A letter to the couple read: “After much prayer following your prenatal, I felt that I would not be able to develop the personal patient-doctor relationships that I normally do with my patients.”
“We do not keep prenatal information once we have our meetings so I had no way to contact you.”
Going on to apologise, she said: “I should have spoken with you directly that day… please know that I believe that God gives us free choice and I would never judge anyone based on what they do with that free choice.“
