Guadalupe Benitez, right, plays with twins Sophia, left, and Shane, 2, as her partner Joanne Clark holds son Gabriel, 5.

Starting Wednesday, The California Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case of a lesbian mother against fertility doctors who refused to provide fertility treatments on religious grounds. 

The lesbian, Guadalupe Benitez from Oceanside, north of San Diego, received 11 preliminary drug treatments in 2000 before being rejected from the actual in vitro component when the doctors at the clinic discovered her sexuality. She eventually, along with her partner, went to a private clinic, not covered by either one of their health insurance plans, and had a son (they now have two daughters as well). 

According to KCBS, the women are suing under the state’s Unruh civil rights law, which protects gay men and lesbians from discrimination in the state. They claim that the doctors’ refusal at the North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group cost them thousands of dollars because they had to seek another doctor.

Lawyers for the clinic contend doctors have a right to accommodate their religious beliefs by referring a patient to a different doctor. The Supreme Court must decide whether the clinic’s lawyers can introduce a religious defense at the trial, which will take place in San Diego County Superior Court.

Benitez said in a previous interview, “People ask me, ‘Why are you doing this? You have your kids.’ I want to make a difference. These doctors are not God. They cannot manipulate who can have children and who cannot.”