Thursday, August 11, 2005

word of advice:

If you're a rape victim, and heading to a hospital to get a rape kit done, do not, I repeat, do NOT go to a Catholic hospital.

I just came across this frightening article on Women's eNews.
Written from the perspective of a husband of a rape counselor, Nevyn O'Kane, gives a chilling account of when he gave his wife a ride to the hospital to counsel a recent rape victim.

Some excerpts from the article:
That's when my wife came out of the treatment area with a look that would've melted stone.

"We might have to give her a ride," she said.

"Sure, how come?" I asked.

"They're now a Catholic hospital."


But one of the most important changes [when a Catholic conglomerate takes over a hospital] is that in cases of sexual assault, emergency contraception, known as Plan B, is typically not given by the hospital.


O'Kane also makes observations on what the family of the rape victim sitting in the waiting room would be going through:
So far, they could've been confronted with the message that their raped friend, sister or daughter would not be given medication to prevent pregnancy, God was behind the assault, and if the outcome was pregnancy, to terminate would be immoral and sinful.



Luckily, this particular instance turned out well, though:
Thankfully, as much as the Catholic hospital system may try to take over, doctors are stubborn. While I was looking up the nearest pharmacy, the on-call doctor, calling the new rules "ridiculous," signed out the restricted medication [emergency contraception] to the annoyance of the charge nurse.


This scares the shit out of me.
What if the rape victim is so severely wounded that she needs to go to the nearest hospital, which happens to be a Catholic one? She'll have no choice but to seek treatment at this hospital, and will be shot down (unless there are decent doctors like the one in this story) if/when she asks for EC. Because you know they're not just going to up and offer her a chance to "kill a child."
And yes, she could conceivably go to Planned Parenthood or a similar place and get it that way, but if she wasn't previously aware of this as an option, she's sure as hell not going to get this information from the Catholic hospital.

Do they really think that carrying a baby borne of a rape is preferable to aborting the pregnancy?
Because if so...
that's pretty fucked up.

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