Reply #117: My letter to Clueless Joe

[Hekate]

Dear Senator Lieberman:

I was extremely distressed to read of your interview at http://www.nhregister.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16292372&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=31007&rfi=6&xb=figiv in which you stated categorically that hospitals that don’t want to give contraceptives to rape victims should not be forced to. You were quoted as saying, "In Connecticut, it shouldn’t take more than a short ride to get to another hospital."

(1) As a US Senator, you should be acutely aware that community hospitals all over the country are closing down because they are in debt or because they fail to show a profit. Connecticut may be a geographically small state well-supplied with hospitals and emergency rooms, but I assure you most other places are hurting.

(2) Have you ever conversed with a rape victim? Are you not aware of the extreme emotional and often physical trauma that rape victims undergo?

(3) They don’t drive themselves to the hospital, as a general rule. They are transported in ambulances, accompanied by police because a crime has been committed. It’s a one-way trip — the police and paramedics are not going to drive someone from place to place.

(4) Does it truly seem reasonable to you to suggest that a woman, the victim of a violent crime, should have to direct her own medical care?

(5) Are you aware of the difference between contraceptives and abortifacients? Contraceptives prevent the meeting of sperm and egg, sir. They prevent pregnancy. No pregnancy, no abortion.

The medication given to rape victims is not an abortifacient and will not affect a pregnancy already in progress. This medication prevents a pregnancy from occurring. Any woman who objects to such a medication need not take it. However, any doctor, hospital, clinic, pharmacy, or emergency room that refuses to offer or supply it to any woman in need should have their license lifted.

Refusal to provide necessary medical care to women should be considered in the same legal category as refusing necessary medical care to people because of their race or religion.

(6) 25,000. Twenty-five thousand. That’s the number of pregnancies caused by rape each year in the US. Would you want your wife or daughter to go through such an ordeal because the only hospital or doctor in the area was religiously opposed to preventing a pregnancy due to rape?

Sincerely yours,
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