A
Pitiless Plan A: Denying Plan B Emergency Contraception
To Victims Of Rape
By Robert Weitzel
25 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org
“I don't think you are supposed to put others through hell
so you can avoid it yourself.”
- A Good Friend
In the cold, early morning hours
of January 1, 1974, a good friend, then a 19-year-old college student,
was driving home alone from a New Year’s Eve party. Her Volkswagen
was forced off the road. She was dragged kicking and screaming into
the van of a man who had decided to kidnap and rape her. My friend spent
the hours immediately after her brutal violation convincing the man
not to kill her.
“A van appeared out of nowhere attempting to run me off the
road. I was panic-stricken. I pulled into a parking lot where two men
were preparing morning papers for delivery and ran from my car trying
to reach them. My attacker caught me from behind and dragged me into
his van. I was so close to the paper men I could almost touch them.
I screamed for them to help me. The man who would rape me shouted to
them that I was his girlfriend and that we were having a fight. Apparently
that was okay with the paper men.”
“He drove to an isolated area in a nearby town, then ordered me
to take off my clothes and get in the back of the van. I fought him
until he punched me. I remembered hearing once that the best way to
survive a violent sexual assault was to give in, so I did. The guilt
of doing so haunted me for years.”
The Wisconsin State Senate overwhelmingly passed the “Compassionate
Care for Rape Victims,” a bill that requires hospitals providing
emergency services to inform a rape victim of her right to receive Plan
B emergency contraception (high-dosage birth control pills administered
within 72 hours of intercourse) and to immediately provide it upon her
request.
The bill was referred to
the Assembly Judiciary and Ethics Committee, where it was amended by
the committee chair, Rep. Mark Gundrum, a dogmatic Roman Catholic who
was awarded the 1999 Legislator of the Year Award by Pro-Life Wisconsin,
an anti-contraceptives/anti-choice organization opposed to the Compassionate
Care for Rape Victims bill.
The amendment was a “conscience
clause” allowing healthcare providers to opt out of informing
a rape victim about the Plan B emergency contraception option because
of religious or moral beliefs. The amendment was passed by a 6-4 party
line vote in the Republican controlled committee.
Rep. Gundrum included the
amendment because he believes there were some First Amendment issues
with the bill, “ freedom of speech and freedom of religion . .
. forcing people to say things they don’t mean . . . that may
be against their religious beliefs.”
This amendment becomes a
serious problem in the first 72 hours of a rape crisis, especially in
rural areas with small medical clinics, if one or more of the healthcare
providers have religious convictions against informing a victim of rape
that she has an option that will safely and effectively prevent her
from becoming pregnant with her assailant’s child. One-third of
reproductive age women remain unaware of emergency contraception.
The Wisconsin compassionate
care law has nothing to do with freedom of speech or freedom of religion
and everything to do with appropriate, responsible, legal health care
. . . not to mention basic humanity.
“After he raped
me, he said he didn't know what to do with me. He said that he could
kill me and I thought he would. There were shotgun shells strewn across
the dashboard and he said he had a shotgun.”
“In the days and weeks following the rape I did not sleep, I could
not eat, and I was afraid to be out after dark. My entire life changed.
There simply are no words to describe the shame and guilt that became
so much a part of my life. I remember soaking in the tub for what seemed
like hours, night after night, attempting to cleanse myself of the filth
of the rape.”
In 2004 there were 1,134
forcible rapes—one every 7 hours and 43 minutes—reported
in Wisconsin. One in four of those victims said they feared death or
serious injury.
Nationally, over 300,000
forcible rapes are reported each year. Twenty-five thousand of these
women will become pregnant. If these victims have timely access to Plan
B emergency contraception, an estimated 22,000 pregnancies—almost
90 percent—could be prevented.
A 1996 study published in
the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology revealed that 50 percent
of rape-related pregnancies end in abortion. Plan B would prevent these
abortions.
“I was so young
and so naïve that it didn't immediately occur to me I could be
pregnant. I was a virgin the morning I was raped. I was not using birth
control. Plan B emergency contraception was not an option 33 years ago.
The only options at the time were to have had an abortion or to carry
to term and give birth to the child of the man who had kidnapped and
raped and threatened to kill me. I became possessed by this decision,
wondering if I would see this man's face in the child. And if I chose
to have his child, could I love it the way a child needs to be loved
. . . unconditionally. Would I ever heal? In the end, I decided I could
not have an abortion. I would have chosen Plan B, however.”
There is federal legislation, the “Compassionate Assistance for
Rape Emergencies Act,” in both houses of Congress that will require
hospitals receiving federal funds through the Medicare and Medicaid
programs to provide Plan B emergency contraception to rape victims.
One can safely assume that
right-wing Christian organizations such as “Focus on the Family”
and “Concerned Women of America” will be putting their considerable
political clout into melting the spine of any politician with the slightest
inclination to support the federal CARE Act. Like Wisconsin’s
compassionate care law, it will no doubt get locked up in committee,
eviscerated and forgotten about. This is, after all, not the first attempt
at passing such federal legislation.
Only nine states have statutes
providing victims of rape with timely access to Plan B emergency contraception.
Considering the current fragile state of Roe v. Wade, strong state and
federal compassionate care laws may be a rape victim’s only hope
of having her right to choose the rest of her life supercede the rapist’s
“right” to impregnate her. If the likes of Rep. Gundrum
or Pro-Life Wisconsin or Focus on the Family prevail, the man who chooses
to rape will win hands down.
“Though many years have passed and I consider myself healed
from the rape, there are still times I look at my four children and
thank God I’ve never had to explain to one of them that their
father was a rapist. I also thank God I am not reminded of that man
and of that cold New Year’s morning whenever I look at them but,
instead, know that each one of my children was conceived by choice,
and in love, and were fathered by a most wonderful man.”
Robert Weitzel is a freelance writer whose essays appear
in The Capital Times in Madison, WI. He has been published in the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel, Skeptic Magazine, Freethought Today and on popular
liberal websites. He can be contacted at: [email protected]
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