Oklahoma Doctor Refuses To Provide Rape Victim With Emergency Contraception

[proud2BlibKansan]

An Oklahoma emergency room doctor refused to provide emergency contraception to a 24-year-old female rape victim because the medication violated the health provider’s personal beliefs, a local CBS News affiliate reports. The hospital also denied the victim a rape kit, noting that it had no appropriate nurse on staff to administer the test.

“I will not give you emergency contraceptives because it goes against my beliefs,” the doctor allegedly told the rape victim and her mother, Rhonda. “She knew my daughter had just been raped. Her attitude was so judgmental and I felt that she was just judging my daughter,” Rhonda told the news station. Watch the segment:

Emergency contraception’s effectiveness diminishes over time, and is most effective when taken immediately. Oklahoma law, however, shields providers from offering the perfectly legal medication under a “conscience clause” which could significantly hinder women’s access to contraception services. States across the nation have adopted similar restrictions and GOP presidential candidate

Mitt Romney has pledged to expand Bush-era rules permitting doctors to place their beliefs ahead of women’s health.
Fortunately, the young woman in Oklahoma ended up going to another hospital, where she received the medication she needed and the rape kit. But she would have had to go to two hospitals either way, since budget cuts have forced the state to resort to a system of rotating Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE nurses).

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/05/31/492878/rape-victim-refused-emergency-contraception-in-oklahoma/

[LonePirate]

1. These people disgust me.

[Initech]

2. I completely agree - I hate the hardcore fundamentalists more each day.

[bluestateguy]

3. These conscience clauses must really suck for people in rural areas

You live in some backwoods, country bumpkin place, and there is only one doctor or pharmacist in town. And then, unlucky you! He's a fundamentalist nutjob or a pre-Vatican II Catholic. Then you have to trek on over to another town or county to get what you need and are willing to pay for.

[freshwest]

11. If you can afford to travel. If not, smile and prepare to give birth. And marry the rapist, too.

Straight back to the Middle Ages.. or Taliban.

And the no rape kit? Obviously they don't believe in getting DNA to prosecute the rapist, either.

If she'd been infected with an STD that would have been another blessing that Sanctorum promised.

If we keep on going this way...

[SoutherDem]

4. There are churches which teach faith healing

Could those doctors refuse medical help, praying for the patient instead?

What about vaccines which are to prevent STD?

What about the sad but occasional situation where the only one can be saved?

What about those who feel mental illness is a sign of weakness and won't prescribe medication?

I know they only wanted to stop abortion, but to put one's life in the hands of someone else who can administer treatment based on their conscience is dangerous.

What if that doctor need treatment which goes against their doctors conscience.

[kestrel91316]

5. Name the doctor and spread it around the internet.

She's so effin' proud of her beliefs, let her live with the consequences in perpetuity.

[MountainLaurel]

10. Another thread lists her name

As provided by the patient's mother, who was with her at the time.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

6. Integris Baptist Hospital on NW Expressway is excellent.

That's the second hospital the victim went to, and she was treated appropriately.

I was in Integris Baptist Hospital in ICU for 8 days in Nov. and Dec. and the people there were the most conscientious health care professionals I have ever seen. Even the guys who mopped floors were working on BSRNs, or pushing wheelchairs and working on respiratory therapy certifications, etc.

[kdmorris]

7. Why are the only things ever affected

by the "conscience clause" having to do with female reproduction? When has a man ever been denied a necessary medication procedure or drug because it went against someone's beliefs?

What if my conscience doesn't allow me to give Viagra out? Am I covered?

What an idiot doctor!

[Honeycombe8]

8. Did they ask to see another doctor? They were in a hospital.

Aren't there several doctors on call?

I'm not sure what a rape kit is.

[liberalhistorian]

9. Ugh. You do NOT have the right

to force your own beliefs on the general public, especially if you are in a profession where said general public are your patients. Something tells me this cavewoman has no trouble prescribing viagra, however.

[SunSeeker]

12. How sick.

I can't believe a female doctor did that. What if the roles were reversed? Has she no empathy? Unbelievable.

[Humanist_Activist]

13. This doctor needs to lose his medical license, get fired, and then arrested for obstructing justice.

[Puregonzo1188]

14. I don't understand why this person would become a doctor in the first place.

[bluesbassman]

15. I guess this doctor went to a school that did not require her to take the Hippocratic Oath.

Otherwise, she failed big time.

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not", nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, be respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

[MsPithy]

16. This doctor requires a complaint against her to the state medical board.

And, if any doctors in the whole fucking state believe patients are more important than politics, they need to step up and change this law!

[NYC_SKP]

18. I like mine on crackers!