Additionally, gay and lesbian patients face particular prejudice from "homophobic" health care providers, and may avoid seeking health care if they suspect that they will encounter such prejudice (Quittner 2004). Furthermore, some health care practitioners may actually refuse treatment of some patients based on religious or moral objections, and in some states doctors' rights to do this may soon be protected by law. Bills have been introduced in Arkansas, Michigan, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and West Virginia that would give health care workers, from doctors to pharmacists, the right to refuse treatment or medication to any patient based on ethical, moral, or religious reasons, while in Georgia health care professionals are already legally allowed to discriminate based on their own moral or ethical beliefs (Kuhr 2005).
The injustices within the health care systems of developed countries throughout the world are indicative of a larger problem in society. Human justice is not being reached or served in a society that does not have equal opportunities for all citizens, nor can human justice exist when social inequality is rampant. In the health care system, patients face discrimination based on race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, gender, and morality. Based on these factors, and others, patients receive less quality care, and have higher mortality rates because of this inequality. In order for human justice to be achieved within the health care system, , xenophobia, classism, sexism, homophobia, and other prejudicial opinions are common and generally accepted as normal, human justice is not being achieved and the health care system will remain flawed
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