Hartford archbishop Henry Mansell has suggested a potential compromise to resolve the emergency contraception debate going on now in the Connecticut legislature about requiring all hospitals to provide rape victims with emergency contraception.
Hartford Archbishop Henry J. Mansell Thursday said he was working with legislative leaders to craft a "mutually respectful" solution to legislation that would require all hospitals that receive public funds - including Catholic hospitals - to offer emergency birth control.
Speaking at a rally on the Capitol steps, Mansell said his staff was working toward a "third party" resolution he believed would be the "best solution" to the "Plan B" contraception debate. He declined to elaborate.
I'm concerned with the availability of emergency contraception and I expect that all hospitals in Connecticut provide it to rape victims. 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. It gets us past the Catholic hospitals scientifically erroneous arguments that confound contraception and abortion and allows all women in Connecticut the comfort of mind to know that if the worst happened, their agony won't be prolonged by being asked by a hospital administrator to take a "short ride" to a hospital that will give her necessary care.
The Compassionate Care for Rape Victims Act was approved the human services committee last week, though it will likely be sent to the public health committee before being introduced to the full Senate. If Mansell's compromise is one that could ensure this bill's passage, language should be added to the Act to reflect it.
The Hartford Courant has a powerful editorial today calling for the state to pass laws mandating that hospitals provide rape victims with emergency contraception (though they never mention the Compassionate Care for Rape Victims Act by name). The editorial closes, "It is sad that hospitals must be required by law to offer the aid a traumatized woman may need. But no woman should be turned away." Agreed.
Connecticut State Rep. Deborah Heinrich (D-Madison) has been a strong advocate for emergency contraception for rape victims in Connecticut. Yesterday, in a press conference that preceded hearings on the Compassionate Care for Rape Victims Act, shared with the press and her colleagues that she had been a victim of rape and wanted to ensure that other rape victims would not have to live with the fear of pregnancy following rape because some hospitals refused to carry emergency contraception.
The 38-year-old mother of two recounted the details of a terrifying night when she was a freshman at an out-of-state college and a man she knew tore out clumps of her hair in pursuit of her.
After the numbness passed, she said, "slowly the most horrifying thought passed through the fog: My God, what if I am pregnant?"
At the time, Plan B emergency contraception was not available. But Heinrich says she cannot believe that even now some rape victims must wait and worry because not all hospitals offer it in the emergency room.
The state's Catholic hospitals have lead the opposition to the Compassionate Care for Rape Victims Act on the scientifically incorrect grounds that "emergency contraception can amount to abortion." Maura had a great diary a few days ago that explained why this claim is specious and how Plan B actually works.
On a more practical note, he added, all of Connecticut's Catholic hospitals are in big cities, minutes from other hospitals and pharmacies that are free to dispense the high-dose birth control pills.
This is simply sick. Finding care after your raped isn't as simple as hoping in your car (assuming you have one) and driving to one that will treat you (assuming you're physically able to drive). Atrios described the scenario encouraged for rape victims by Feldman and Lieberman last year - it isn't pretty. Suggesting that some who has just been raped and is likely in a state of complete mental anguish and physical pain should drive themselves from hospital to hospital until they have the sense to stop at one that actually will treat them for being raped is as callous and uncaring as humanly imaginable. I wonder if Feldman had the courage to offer this suggestion while Heinrich was in the room. I wonder if he would have the courage to tell a rape victim like Heinrich, as she sits on the examining table, that he will not provide her with emergency contraception, but she's more than welcome to start a driving tour of the state to find someplace who will.
Hopefully the Compassionate Care for Rape Victims Act passes and we won't have to listen to wankers like Feldman and Lieberman defend institutionalized cruelty to rape victims any more.
(This is a great talking point on Plan B for rape victims. - promoted by Matt Browner Hamlin)
The Connecticut Edition of the New York Times has published a Letter to the Editor from Susan Lloyd Yolen, Planned Parenthood of Connecticut VP for public affairs and commnication.
Her LTTE covers a number of subjects that have been in the news lately about offering Plan B to rape victims. "Pro-Life" activists have been misinforming the public about the pill and how it works, and the Catholic Hospitals are now planning on administering ovulation testing to rape victims to determine whether they can become pregnant, and then withholding Plan B if the victim is ovulating.
Susan Yolen concludes her letter by stating:
Hospitals that wish to uphold the dignity of life might begin by considering the dignity that crime victims deserve.
Tomorrow Planned Parenthood of Connecticut is offering a free dose of Plan B emergency contraception at each of it's 18 CT locations. Plan B is now available to women over the age of 18 without a prescription, but as you know there is no law in Connecticut that requires hospitals or pharmacies to keep the drug in stock. Therefore PPC recommends that women keep a dose in their home in case they or another woman they know should need access to it.
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