Plan B Compromise?

Must have state oversight (0.00 / 0)

If the state were to step in and ensure that all women receive the necessary care when they are raped and also agrees to pay for that treatment, I'd be fine with it.

There _has_ to be state involvement.  They could contract it out with a team like this one below.  I'm just as concerned about execution in non-Catholic hospitals as I am with policy in Catholic ones.

They need the important additional feature that the vendor has to be qualified to hand out the meds.  Not sure if a person can do this via phone with a CT licensed doc.

http://www.rapevicti...

The Rape Victim Advocates medical advocacy program currently works with 16 Chicago-area hospitals. Our medical advocacy services are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
...
When a sexual assault survivor arrives at one of our contracted hospitals, the hospital pages an advocate to assist this survivor while he or she is in the ER. The advocate provides emotional support, medical and legal information, referrals and initial follow-up services to survivors and their significant others. If the survivor requests additional follow-up services, a staff advocate can provide more long-term medical and legal advocacy.

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by: drowsy @ Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 13:01:14 PM UTC

SANE (0.00 / 0)

Just read this at the NH Register.  The SANE program is in place at Yale at least.  SHould be shifted/expanded/etc.  I'll leave it at that to respect MBH's intent for the thread.

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by: drowsy @ Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 17:55:27 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Full steam ahead! (0.00 / 0)

This makes it clear to me that the only reason we're hearing about "negotiations" is because they see that this measure has a lot of support.  We have to keep it up.

Senate President Pro Tem Donald E. Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn, expressed surprise at Mansell's comments. Williams said having outside parties such as nurses or rape crisis counselors deliver Plan B contraceptives to the hospitals was discussed with Catholic Church representatives several weeks ago.

"We didn't receive any clear signal whether that would be acceptable," Williams said.

Mansell said negotiations are ongoing.

I don't like the term negotiations on this one.  I want the law passed with the stongest language possible, then we can show respect by supplying the personnel, the meds, maybe even a trailer in the parking lot.  But negotiations before the fact sounds slippery to me.

Anything that comes out of this has to be mandatory for all.

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by: drowsy @ Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 13:10:53 PM UTC

Very diplomatic (0.00 / 0)

"We didn't receive any clear signal whether that would be acceptable," Williams said.

Actually, the church rejected this out of hand. And the hospitals' representative rejected it in his testimony before the Human Services committee.

–7.25 / –7.28 | http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tw...

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by: mattw @ Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 14:56:44 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Mansell (0.00 / 0)

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear in my post, but in my eyes the only thing worthy of discussion is having the state pay for the medication itself. If the state paid for the medication for all hospitals and in return all hospitals were required to deliver it to rape victims, then I think we're in a good place.

I don't know much about the 3rd party scenarios - I'd actually incorrectly read that to mean the state.

Disclosure: I'm proud to work for the Service Employees International Union

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by: Matt Browner Hamlin @ Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 15:10:36 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

It already does (4.00 / 1)

The state already does pay for this medication, just as it also pays for "rape kits" for evidence collection from rape victims.  But the victim services department apparently only has a mechanism for paying for it when women go to ER's, which one of the reasons why "oh, she can just go to a pharmacy" is not a solution.

For many rape victims, $50 to $70 represents food for the entire family for a week or two, and it is cash that she simply might not have in the crucial hours after a rape.  The state will give her the medication for free, but the problem is that not all hospitals -- and that means not all secular hospitals as well -- offer it when it is indicated and dispense the full dose in the ER.

This bill is not about Catholic hospitals; it's about ensuring a standard of care for rape vitims in the immediate aftermath of rape in ALL Connecticut hospitals.

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by: Maura @ Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 17:05:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Agreed (0.00 / 0)

I want there to be no doubt that any rape victim will receive emergency contraception as part of any rape kit in any hospital in the state.

Disclosure: I'm proud to work for the Service Employees International Union

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by: Matt Browner Hamlin @ Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 17:23:08 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Catholic Church negotiating? (0.00 / 0)

The only reason an archbishop in CT is giving "press conferences" to give the sound bites of "negotiating" is because the church knows this bill will pass easily through the legislature, and the state electorate will be perfectly happy about it. The church has already lost this argument after the rest of CT was informed that this [EC] is not yet a state-mandated procedure.

The church is trying desperately to save whatever ground they will lose on this issue.

The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice. --Martin Luther King, Jr.

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by: connecticutyankee @ Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 19:07:38 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

What's his compromise? Liebermans suggestion that secular hospitals (0.00 / 0)

are a short distance from Catholic ones?

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by: Larkspur @ Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 13:20:18 PM UTC