Same-sex couples and families face many additional challenges in the United States, whether it be from cultural views on their lifestyle or any number of legal barriers that interrupt the function of their daily lives. This paper seeks to focus on one particular legal hurdle that homosexual families face, one that often has the most severe consequences on their futures. In the medical world, emergency medical decisions and other health-related choices are often entirely blocked off to homosexual families, putting the family at risk of sacrificing some of their well being. How particularly does this lack of medical law inequality affect same-sex couples with their interaction with the health care system? Below, several points will be discussed that outline particular challenges that have arisen from a lack of legal status surrounding same-sex families.
[...] A Review of Same-Sex Family Medicine Same-sex couples and families face many additional challenges in the United States, whether it be from cultural views on their lifestyle or any number of legal barriers that interrupt the function of their daily lives. This paper seeks to focus on one particular legal hurdle that homosexual families face, one that often has the most severe consequences on their futures. In the medical world, emergency medical decisions and other health- related choices are often entirely blocked off to homosexual families, putting the family at risk of sacrificing some of their well being. [...]
[...] None of these have federal protection based on inclusion of sexual orientation, leaving them open as a way to legally deny health insurance benefits to homosexuals (Li 1996). To prevent these men from gaining coverage, the agencies are able to deny policies based on properties that homosexual men were already discriminated against. Fair housing laws did not include orientation as protected, so men could be evicted in many areas if suspected of engaging in homosexual behaviors. Applications that required proof of steady occupation would be turned down, as homosexual individuals did not have access to equal opportunity employment protection surrounding their sexual orientation. [...]
[...] Irene Anne Jillson points out that “there is a systemic bias in favor of heterosexuals in a number of federally administered benefit programs” and “without legal acknowledgment of the LGBT family unit, LGBT persons whose partners become medically incapacitated can be left out of medical decision-making, denied information, or barred from seeing their partner” (Jillson 2002, p. 155). Familial involvement with medical decisions and treatment is known to have a very positive effect on patient well being, and LGBT families are routinely denied this opportunity. [...]
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