Religion used as Reason to Deny Birth Control

Today in class Professor Selig mentioned the NPR podcast that she just posted on the blog about that discussed recent anti-LGBTQ legislation in Texas that uses religious freedom as grounds for denying services to LGBTQ individuals. This reminded me of an experience my mom had recently at a doctors office in Turlock, the small town my parents recently moved to. As they had just moved, my mother needed a new doctor. On her first visit she asked to get a new IUD, her current method of birth control. The doctor told her she probably didn’t need it because she was likely menopausal. My mother told him she knew she was not, to which he replied something along the lines of her still not needing it because the chances of her getting pregnant were so small. My mother pushed back again and asked if there was any reason for her not to get the IUD because wasn’t it better to be safe than sorry….he still refused to provide her with the IUD. So she went to Planned Parenthood instead and had a much more positive experience. Once she made friends with people in town, she learned that that particular doctor is Catholic, and does not believe in birth control, and that was why he refused to give my mom the IUD, not because he genuinely believed, in his unbiased professional opinion, that she did not need it. Although this experience is different from LGBTQ discrimination, it is still an example of an individual’s personal religious beliefs being used to violate someone’s rights. However, the doctor did not explicitly state that he was refusing to give her birth control because it conflicts with his religious beliefs, and as such, this experience makes me think about the anti-LGBTQ legislation in Texas because even if it is ultimately defeated, there is nothing preventing individuals from continuing to discriminate against LGBTQ people, or violate reproductive rights, on the basis of religion however informally.