Denver Catholic Hospitals Refuse EC Info for Ovulating Rape Victims

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The protocol of six Catholic hospitals run by Centura calls for rape victims to undergo an ovulation test.

If they have not ovulated, said Centura corporate spokeswoman Dana Berry, doctors tell the victims about emergency contraception and write prescriptions for it if the patient asks.

If, however, the urine test suggests that a rape victim has ovulated, Berry continued, doctors at Centura's Catholic hospitals are not to mention emergency contraception. That means
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http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~27772~2842070,00.html

So basically if you're likely to get pregnant they won't give you information about EC, but if you aren't likely to get pregnant they will. Anyone else find this appalling?

Period.

Don't start lecturing me about religious or particularly Catholic health care.

I was born in Hotel Dieu in New Orleans, and my father passed away at Mercy.

Yes, they are major providers of not-for-profit care.

But if they are going to make decisions like these, then their practicioners should lose their licenses.

I'm amazed they provide EC advice at all. Now that it's becoming an issue, I imagine they'll probably retreat into their religion, close their minds and hearts, and cease any EC treatment whatsoever.

It'll be their choice. And tough as it is to accept, we need to keep the wall intact between State and Church if we hope to sustain it between Church and State.

Time is running out for legislators to try to override the governor's ridiculous veto of an emergency-contraception notification bill for rape victims.

...

It includes Owens, who argues that religious freedom allows private religious hospitals to collect public dollars, then lets them treat rape victims differently based on a definition of conception that differs from that of the National Institutes of Health.

So basically the Governor thinks that they should get public funds and also be allowed to decide who gets this information and who doesn't. That isn't right.

Also, if we want to talk about maintaining that wall, then we need to make sure there are public hospitals that WILL provide this information in the area. The Catholic hospitals are expanding as the funding for public hospitals dries up, and there may not be an option to go to a hospital that will provide EC in some places.

It is not the CHURCH treating patients -- it is MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS.

And those medical professionals ARE governed by the STATE -- the state that sets the requirements for membership in the professions, and the ethical/professional standards that members of the professions must adhere to.

And the state is perfectly entitled to require that members of professions who have undertaken to abide by those standards actually ABIDE by those standards. And that means, first and foremost, acting in the patient's interests, not on their own or their employer's whim.


I'd be quite curious to know whether the patients in question are told what they are being tested for, and what the purpose of the test is.

Are the patients deceived in any way? Are they told that an ovulation test is not necessary in order for them to be given emergency contraception? Are they told of any possibility that the test results may be inaccurate? Are they told, if they decline the test, that treatment is being withheld not because they declined a test that was necessary in order to decide treatment, but because they declined a test that had nothing to do with treatment and because of considerations totally unrelated to, and in fact contrary to, their health interests?

If a patient were denied a treatment that was given to another patient, and the denial were for a totally irrelevant reason, how could the hospital respond to a complaint?

An "ovulation test" is NOT indicated for a patient in need of protection against unwanted pregnancy. Proof of absence-of-ovulation is not a requirement for the treatment to be indicated, and absence of proof of absence-of-ovulation is not a contra-indication for the treatment.

Criminy. How about if the hospital decides, for whatever scriptural reasons it might have (and it could surely find some), that it is not going to treat Asian patients -- and demands that patients of its choice submit to genetic testing to determine whether they are Asian before it will provide them with the treatment indicated by their condition and needs and wishes? That be okay with all the liberals? How about if it decided not to employ African-Americans, or Jews, or people with disabilities?

If RCers, or anybody else, does not wish to provide medical services to patients, they can stay out of the hospital game.

Once they're in the hospital game, they are bound by the rules of that game. And those rules include ethical, professional, non-discriminatory behaviour toward and treatment of patients. And women in need of reproductive health services are every bloody bit as entitled to receive the treatment that they need and want and that is legal and medically recognized as appropriate to their condition as everybody else is.

The state is not telling them how to run their church. The state is not compelling them to operate hospitals. The state is telling them that if they choose to operate a hospital, or engage in any other provision of services to the public, they must do so according to the laws that govern that activity.

I can hardly wait until the RC or some other church starts operating restaurants or gas stations, and demanding that customers convert before they'll be served. Maybe they can start up a bus line, and make non-RCers sit at the back of the bus ...

OB-Gyn services at their hospitals.

If they can't offer full care to half their patients, then they need to get out of the business of treating them.

Catholic hospitals should be MEN'S hospitals.

They won't give contraceptive info unless they think the woman may
conceive due to being raped.

This reveals that their true terror is women having information about
contolling their own reproduction. "Don't give it to 'em unless its
absolutely neccessary!"

If they have not ovulated, said Centura corporate spokeswoman Dana Berry, doctors tell the victims about emergency contraception and write prescriptions for it if the patient asks.

If, however, the urine test suggests that a rape victim has ovulated, Berry continued, doctors at Centura's Catholic hospitals are not to mention emergency contraception. That means the victim can end up pregnant by her rapist.

At least according to that article, they only give you the information if they think you aren't likely to be pregnant (and therefore they aren't likely to be "killing" a "life.")

That's what makes this even MORE appalling than if they only gave out the information to people who it should be "absolutely necessary" to give it too.

everyone knows the hypocritical stand of the church, so why bother

those are the only ones around.

The Catholic hospitals are expanding; they're busy buying up all of the public hospitals here because the funding for public hospitals is drying up. Two of the three closest hospitals to me are Catholic and I'm in an urban area with many choices. If the victim lives in an area where there is only one hospital, they might just end up SOL.

after the patient is stabalized transfer out

In this environment the government will not make them change their policy

of paternalistic 'we know better than a woman does about what's in her best interest' and that's what I find most insulting and demeaning about all of this.

Not worthy of compassion and respect....just a baby machine in their eyes.