The Badger Herald: News: State legislators introduce ‘Rape Victims Act’

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State legislators introduce ‘Rape Victims Act’

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Also by Jane Howard:

Blind student earns UW medical degree (April 13, 2005)
Hong pushes back office reorganization (April 22, 2005)
Group assists tax process (March 31, 2005)
State legislators introduce 'Rape Victims Act' (March 10, 2005)
Goodman slams 'big media' (March 7, 2005)

Thursday, March 10, 2005 12:00 a.m.

2 Vote 0 Votes

State legislators presented a bill Wednesday requiring hospitals to provide information on emergency contraception to rape victims.

State Sen. Judy Robson, D-Beloit, and State Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, introduced the “Compassionate Care for Rape Victims Act” alongside proponents for women’s health care at a Capitol press conference.

Advocates of the bill hope it will help rape victims receive comprehensive care after a traumatic event, while also potentially preventing an unwanted pregnancy.

The controversial emergency contraception is a pill used to prevent an unwanted pregnancy after sexual intercourse.

As a registered emergency-room nurse for five years, Robson said she could sympathize with rape victims.

“I care for the very frantic, very stressed, almost hysterical rape victims, and I saw first-hand the devastation and atrocity after such an assault.”

Robson said a woman is raped every five minutes in the United States. She added that out of the 300,000 reported rapes in this country, 25,000 women get pregnant as a result of that rape. If emergency contraception was available to women in hospital emergency rooms, approximately 22,000 of pregnancies as a result of rape would be prevented, she said.

Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, who also spoke at the conference, advocated the bill as a way to promote women’s rights in Wisconsin.

Lawton said the state was graded a C- for the status of women’s care, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, mostly because the state received a “dismal F” for providing emergency contraception. Every medical provider should provide comprehensive medical care, including emergency contraception for rape victims, Lawton said.

“Crime victims should never be re-victimized by a medical facility … but rather empowered to make smart decisions for their own health,” Lawton said.

Linda Gage, a rape survivor, spoke out for the first time at the conference. Her eyes welled with tears as she described how the hospital simply cleaned her bruises and scrapes and sent her home after her assault years ago.

“I am now the mother of three daughters,” Gage said. “And I can’t imagine why anyone would oppose any compassionate care for rape victims.”

Public opinion polls of Wisconsin voters showed overall support for the bill. According to a 2004 survey, 72 percent favored emergency-contraception availability to rape victims in emergency rooms. In addition, 62 percent of voters said they would not support a candidate who opposed such access.

Proponents of the bill strongly considered religious-based hospitals while drafting the bill, speculating that the religious community would be the source of most opposition.

According to Pocan, only nine of 35 Catholic hospitals in Wisconsin offer emergency contraception to rape victims. Based on the shortcomings from a previous draft of the “Compassion Act,” Pocan said the state worked to achieve support from the religious community by working directly with the Catholic Code of Ethics drafted by the Catholic bishops.

Pocan believes there will be little opposition for the bill now that the state has worked with the Catholic Church and tailored it to American Medical Association regulations.

But University of Wisconsin nursing student Ashley Albers, a Catholic, said she opposes the bill because the “compassionate care” that emergency-room personnel should be giving victims does not need to include the added risk of an understudied drug.

“The commonly used emergency contraceptive Plan B is associated with increased risk of ectopic pregnancy and has the potential to abort pregnancy by preventing implantation of the fertilized embryo,” Albers said. “Personally, I believe that offering a rape victim a potential abortion on top of an already traumatic experience is just asking for psychological repercussions.”

— Rachel Patzer contributed to this article.

2 Comments | Leave a comment

Anonymous | March 10, 2005 4:02 PM | Reply

I am thankful that I saw this article today on-line. As a rape survivor from over 30 years ago, I wish that this would have been available to me as a choice instead of being told when I found out that I was pregnant I had to leave my military career or get an abortion. I chose to leave and then had to relinquish my child and still have never met her yet. I hope and pray that this bill will go through and that the whole country will follow through. Thanx—

Anonymous | March 13, 2005 4:54 PM | Reply

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