Rape Victim Denied Pill

I not sure how people would feel about this topic, but I thought that it would be an interesting one to bring up here. What if you were the doctor? What if this was your wife, your daughter, or in the case of the T-Vixens on here, yourself? Thoughts?

http://www.pennlive.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news/115383211470590.xml&coll=1

[i]Rape victim denied morning-after pill
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
BY TOM BOWMAN AND DIANA FISHLOCK
Of The Patriot-News

LEBANON - A Good Samaritan Hospital emergency room doctor refused to give a rape victim a morning-after pill because he said it was against his Mennonite religion.

Rebuffed by the doctor, the woman called her gynecologist, who wrote the prescription. Her local pharmacy told her it was out of the drug and referred her to a sister store in Reading.

The former medical director of the hospital said he sees nothing strange about asking a woman from eastern Lebanon County to drive to Reading for a drug.

“People drive to Reading to buy jeans. Even if that were the case, that you had to drive to Reading to get this [prescription], to me that does not rise to a compulsion that you have to pass laws that [doctors] have to do something,” Dr. Joe Kearns said.

Emergency contraception, often called the morning-after pill, gives a high dosage of birth-control medicine that can prevent pregnancy.

It’s a pill that Dr. Martin Gish, the physician who treated the rape victim, said he has prescribed.

“This is an issue I’ve struggled with for years,” Gish said. “My current feeling is life begins at conception, and I feel that anything that interferes with that” causes an abortion.

“The dilemma I have is the whole rape issue: Which side are you more concerned with? Are you more concerned about the mother or the life that was possibly created? That’s my dilemma,” he said. “I personally don’t have this thing worked out. I’m not sure how my faith can line up with my practice at times of what I’m asked to do.”

The state backs up his refusal.

Hospitals are not required to prescribe emergency contraception pills, and the state does not keep statistics on how many do, said Richard McGarvey, spokesman for the state Health Department.

“There is a law that says if a hospital chooses not to provide a treatment for religious reasons, they can do that,” McGarvey said.

Kearns said a doctor has rights, too.

“The question is, if you are a physician, do you have to provide services to patients that you think are heinous? And the answer is in this country [is] no, you don’t,” Kearns said.

Jenny Murphy-Shifflet, executive director of the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center of Lebanon County, has her focus on the victims.

She said she has been trying for a year to get Good Samaritan Hospital to require its doctors to write prescriptions for emergency contraceptives.

“No victim should have to run around town after an assault looking for emergency contraceptives,” she said.

Most midstate hospitals provide emergency contraception to rape victims, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.

“We don’t treat it any different than any other legal prescription medication,” said Dr. John Repke, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.

But Kearns said Good Samaritan will not formulate a policy for or against prescribing morning-after pills for the same reason it won’t perform abortions.

“I’ll tell you why we don’t do abortions. Because there’d be such a hullabaloo and disruption in this very-Mennonite and very-fundamentalist community that there would be so much downside to this in terms of people not wanting to come to this hospital, even though it’s their local hospital,” Kearns said. “It’s just not worth doing it.”

A spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape said that if an attending physician is not comfortable dispensing the medication, he or she could call in someone else.

“Obviously, in incidents like this, we want all victims to have access to comprehensive health care after an emergency,” Danielle Sunday said.

A bill proposed in the state House and Senate, known as the Compassionate Assistance for Rape Emergencies Act, would ensure comprehensive medical care, including emergency contraception, for all rape victims, PCAR said.

The woman who reported the rape was emotionally unable to speak to a reporter yesterday, her father said.

Richland police Chief Dennis Morgan said he is investigating her rape, the first in the borough in 27 years.

The woman’s father said she was lying on the grass in her front yard in Richland about 2 a.m. when a man stopped to ask directions. She told her father that the man punched her, knocking her unconscious, then raped her while wearing a condom.

The victim waited until later that day to tell her mother about the rape. The mother and daughter drove to Good Samaritan Hospital for treatment but did not ask Gish for the morning-after drug until Saturday, after talking with family members.[/i]

There was a pharmacist interviewed in Texas who wouldn’t give a patient her script for Birth Control pills because he said it was against his religion. I posted the story here about a year or two ago.

Would you force the doctor to perform an abortion on a rape victim if it was against his beliefs?

[quote]doogie wrote:

Would you force the doctor to perform an abortion on a rape victim if it was against his beliefs?

[/quote]

Are you asking me or is this an open question to the forum?

[quote]doogie wrote:

Would you force the doctor to perform an abortion on a rape victim if it was against his beliefs?

[/quote]

I would ask that doctor to do his job or change careers. That is my honest answer. As a PROFESSION, regardless of whether the person I am working on is a card carrying Klu Klux Klan member, it is my job to do what I have been trained to do and treat them with the same respect I do everyone else. Someone who truly is that conflicted probably shouldn’t be OBGYN.

This is right down the road from me.

Asking someone from eastern Lebanon county to go to Reading to pick up something is no big deal.

To try to force a Mennonite doctor to prescribe an abortion pill or force him to do an abortion is idiotic.

Her personal doctor gave her the necessary prescription. Her local pharmacy was out of stock. She had to go down the road to get it. No big deal.

It is a horrible shame she was raped and then had to go through this.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
doogie wrote:

Would you force the doctor to perform an abortion on a rape victim if it was against his beliefs?

I would ask that doctor to do his job or change careers. That is my honest answer. As a PROFESSION, regardless of whether the person I am working on is a card carrying Klu Klux Klan member, it is my job to do what I have been trained to do and treat them with the same respect I do everyone else. Someone who truly is that conflicted probably shouldn’t be OBGYN.
[/quote]

This is true. An OB/GYN should either write the prescription or make it clear to every patient before he sees them that he will not be involved in abortion in any form.

The doctor in this case was an ER doctor.

I agree with x. speak brother. This is fucked “My current feeling is life begins at conception”- what kind of life could originate at a rape? Doesn’t he see any baby born of that wouldn’t excatly be cherished like it should?

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:

It is a horrible shame she was raped and then had to go through this.[/quote]

Which is where the focus should be. I have no clue how far she had to drive. What I do know is that if facilities are going to hire professionals who will not perform certain duties due to religion or preference, they should probably have someone on staff who will take up the slack. What if a certain religion didn’t believe in amputation? Would it make sense for someone like that to become a surgeon? Maybe in that small town (I assume it is small) that particular doctor has to see very few abortions. Hopefully he won’t transfer to a larger city where this could be a much larger issue.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
doogie wrote:

Would you force the doctor to perform an abortion on a rape victim if it was against his beliefs?

I would ask that doctor to do his job or change careers. That is my honest answer. As a PROFESSION, regardless of whether the person I am working on is a card carrying Klu Klux Klan member, it is my job to do what I have been trained to do and treat them with the same respect I do everyone else. Someone who truly is that conflicted probably shouldn’t be OBGYN.
[/quote]

It’s a good thing they don’t give her the pill, because you know it might promote her going out and getting raped again.

X’s thing reminds me of a firemen I once knew. The guy looked like a Hell’s Angel, and acted like one to- hated Jews, blacks, hispanics. He told me once that if they were in a fire, he’d save their ass because that’s his job. Outside in the street, he wouldn’t care, but it was his job to get them out of that fire, and that’s what he was going to do.

I think he was lying, because he was a good guy and few can actually be that callous (and it wouldn’t be him), but the point remains- his profession came above his personal beliefs. If it ever got to the point where he would let a guy die just because he was black…well, then it’s time to find a new profession.

I was gang raped by strangers at the age of 13. At the hospital I was given the morning after pill. The pain of having potentially killed a child is far worse to me than any lingering emotional pain from the rape. Their sin was horrible, but my sin was worse.

Studies show that it is far more therapeutic for a rape victim to carry and deliver the resulting child than to abort the child. That is not to say she has to keep the baby. There are millions of couples willing to adopt. It is not the fault of the child and the child should not have to pay with his or her life for it.

Now that I am a Christian I can wholeheartedly say that I would carry and keep any child if, God forbid, I was raped again.

What is purpose of the ER?

If the ER doc was refusing to do something in the ER that would save a patient’s life, then that would be a problem.

If this was something easily handled by the victim by simply calling her gyno., then I don’t see it as an issue at all.

Zap, is this a private hospital?

[quote]JPBear wrote:
Studies show that it is far more therapeutic for a rape victim to carry and deliver the resulting child than to abort the child. [/quote]

What studies do you base this on? This issue isn’t about what decision the woman should make. It is her body. The issue is whether a doctor can ignore or avoid some duties based on religion.

If it is a state funded ER, then every legal remedy ought to be offered to victims.

If it is a privately held hospital, which receives no state or federal funding, then I suppose they can choose not to carry certain medications or perform certain operations if they are against their religious beliefs.

My religion forbids me to pay tax. Suckers!

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:

It is a horrible shame she was raped and then had to go through this.

Which is where the focus should be. I have no clue how far she had to drive. What I do know is that if facilities are going to hire professionals who will not perform certain duties due to religion or preference, they should probably have someone on staff who will take up the slack. What if a certain religion didn’t believe in amputation? Would it make sense for someone like that to become a surgeon? Maybe in that small town (I assume it is small) that particular doctor has to see very few abortions. Hopefully he won’t transfer to a larger city where this could be a much larger issue.[/quote]

Good Sam is the biggest medical facility in Lebanon, which is a small city.

A ~15 mile drive to the west would bring her to the Hershey Medical Center which is a relatively big hospital has a decent trauma center (helicopters fly in patients day and night) and is also the Penn State medical college

A short drive to the east brings her to the Reading area that also has a hospital.

There are also a few hospitals in Harrisburg that are just a bit further.

I am sure there are a ton of pharmacies in a small radius that had the pill in stock. I am not sure why they sent her out of the county unless she was trying to find a pharmacy that was in the same chain.

I agree that Good Sam should have a doctor available that can take care of these issues quickly. I don’t know how long it took for her to get the script from her OB/GYN.

I don’t know anything about the doctor in this case other than the fact he is a Mennonite and it is likely he will not be practicing in Houston or NYC anytime soon.

In short there is a lot of good medical care in the area, she just happened to go to a smaller hospital with fewer doctors immediately available and then try to get her script from a pharmacy that was out of stock.

[quote]doogie wrote:
What is purpose of the ER?

If the ER doc was refusing to do something in the ER that would save a patient’s life, then that would be a problem.

If this was something easily handled by the victim by simply calling her gyno., then I don’t see it as an issue at all.

Zap, is this a private hospital?[/quote]

I think it is a private hospital.

I know a few women that had their babies there and liked it.

It would not be my first choice for medical care.

I don’t see this as a big issue either.

I am sure there are a lot more procedures they don’t do there besides abortion.

They regularly send patients to HMC for procedures.

[quote]vroom wrote:
My religion forbids me to pay tax. Suckers![/quote]

Tha Amish are required to put a reflective orange triangle on bach of their buggies when they take them on public roads.

A sect around here claims that their religion prohibits them from putting anything that flashy on their buggy so a judge ruled they are allowed to put a non reflective gray triangle on back instead. Bizarre.

What is an Amish girls fantasy?

Two Mennonite.

Remedy? Treatment? Abortion?

She was raped. The last time I checked, pregnancy from wanted, or un-wanted means, is not a disease. Nor does it require immediate medical treatment.

When did life get so cheap? And who are you to judge what quality of life can be had by the product of a rape?

What happened to her was horrible, but geez - some of you are in an awful huge hurry to get pissed at the doctor who decided to exercise his own moral compass while never viloating the hypocratic oath.

[quote]JPBear wrote:

Studies show that it is far more therapeutic for a rape victim to carry and deliver the resulting child than to abort the child. That is not to say she has to keep the baby. There are millions of couples willing to adopt. It is not the fault of the child and the child should not have to pay with his or her life for it.[/quote]

Studies also show that it is better for a child to be raised by two parents rather than one.

-So forcing a woman to birth and/or care for a child as the result of rape detriments the woman and the child (and any current children the woman may have, potential future progeny, any spouse or SO that may be involved…) and we should do this based on your interpretation of a 1500 yr. old book and your personal feelings?

Studies also show that several mental disorders are genetically linked.

-So individuals predisposed to mental deficiency should be granted a ‘rape and reproduce’ right? And if not write it into law, you would still encourage this? And we should allow this based on your interpretation of a 1500 yr. old book and your personal feelings?

Pure genius.