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Plan B Can't Wait

January 23 2007

Up to 8 percent of sexually assaulted women in the United States become pregnant with the assailant's child. Some undoubtedly do so because hospitals fail to help them in time. The consequences can be devastating.

Rape counselors have documented widespread negligence in Connecticut hospitals when it comes to making emergency contraception available to victims of sexual assault. Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services counselors who accompanied rape victims to hospitals in the first half of 2006 say that 40 percent of them were offered too little or none of the so-called Plan B drug.

Some 500 rape victims go to Connecticut hospitals for emergency treatment every year. If the rape counselors are right, that means 200 women and girls are receiving insufficient protection. Sixteen of those women are statistically at risk of becoming pregnant and could, if they don't act fast, undergo surgical abortions later.

Catholic hospitals balk at providing emergency contraception because the church believes it destroys the life begun when a woman's egg is fertilized by sperm. But scientists say Plan B may prevent fertilization.

The drug also work by stopping the fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says pregnancy begins at the point of implantation. So do federal regulations, which state that "pregnancy encompasses the period of time from implantation until delivery." Because of this, several states, including Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York, require all hospitals to dispense Plan B.

As lawmakers, scientists and theologians argue over when life begins, hundreds of sexually assaulted girls and women in Connecticut are given little or no say in a matter that is far from an abstract parsing of medical terms for them.

Doctors and pharmacists should not be forced to act against their consciences. But an injured woman must get the safe and legal care she needs as quickly as possible, to avoid even more harm. She shouldn't have to hospital-shop desperately for contraceptives in the dead of night when pharmacies are closed and the odds of stopping pregnancy decrease with every passing hour.

There must be someone inside every hospital, whether secular or religious, who will offer, immediately, the compassionate help a distraught and wounded woman needs.

i disagree with this quote.
if a doctor of pharmacist's JOB consists of providing prescribed medication or having it available, then they NEED to do it, regardless of their conscience.
no one forced them to take that job in the first place.

What if a Jehova's Witness became a doctor? They're against practically everything medical because it's interference. And thus they'd be allowed to deny anyone pretty much anything.

Then they shouldn't be allowed to practise medicine. Their job directly affects people's lives. You treat the patient based on their needs, not your religious teachings. If people want to see him/her and agree with whatever medical advice they give, then fine. However he/she should refer someone to another doctor if they do not wish to deal with something. Hindering the patient's persuit of medical treatment based on one's morals is not what a doctor is supposed to do.

....Plan B does not kill babies according to anyone's belief because it prevents conception, it doesn't terminate anything that's already there...

It almost makes me want to become a Christian Science pharmacist and dispense NO medication whatsoever.

The thing that annoys me about that stance is that generally people who are against these people who do such a thing (like I am) are also in favor of Conscientious Objectors and military deserters (like I am not).

I don't mind a CO who was drafted, because they never had a choice (same for draft dodgers and deserters who were originally drafted), I'll even go easy on people who were ******** because the military has illegally and unlawfully violated their contracts by extending their TOD and then deserted, but people who joined and got money for college and are now being sent to Iraq and take off so they don't have to go? Yeah, that pisses me off.