i am unclear why its bad that they must undergo a rape examination to get EC? I mean, isnt that a good thing that they would be forced to do this and maybe thereby helping gatgher evidence to convict the a-hole who did it? i do however understand why it sucks that they wouldnt be able to get it at all hospitals. doesnt surprise me with the catholic ones. that kinda thing has to stop.

I find the whole contraversy over the Plan B and EC at hospitals, and abortion at that, as insane. People are battling it based on "morals." Sometimes the condom breaks. Trojan isn't as reliable as it likes to claim that it is. Sometimes the rapist doesn't adhere to the rythem method, like the Catholic Church preaches. These things should be available to us without needing personal information or being interrogated or humiliated any more than we already were. I dunno, maybe it's because I've been put through it before. It's just not fair. But really nothing in the world is.

katie, I think part of the problem is the notion that if a woman is going to say she was raped and she wants EC, that she's then REQUIRED to submit to an exam that could be psychologically damaging and physcially painful. She's already been victimized once. I can only imagine that if I'd just been raped, having someone fiddle around with my genitals would be about the LAST thing I would want, EVER AGAIN IN MY LIFE.

This sort of thing is precisely why rape is so vastly underreported. If a woman says she was raped and won't submit to an exam, then absolutely this means there's less evidence against the rapist, should charges ever be filed (which they usually aren't). But that's not what this is about. This is about her INVIOLABLE RIGHT to control her body. It has been stripped away from her once, and now hospitals are trying to go for Round Two for a women who's been through more than anyone should ever have to. It's not enough that she has to speak the shame of rape (one of my best friends has been raped, and you bet your ASS there's shame involved in admitted someone has violated you like that, even though you did NOTHING WRONG) -- now she has to submit to the indignity of having a random stranger (more likely than not a male, since it would just be the on-call doc, most of whom are male) stick his fingers and instruments into her vagina. She's embarrassed, she's horrified, she's shocked, she's angry, she's in physical and emotional pain, and these wackos STILL want a shot at her hoo-ha.

I'm fucking livid about this. When will our country wake up and stop treating rape survivors like criminals????!?!?!??!

Law Fairy,
You know the answer to that question - when the country decides our bodies aren't public property. Sadly, not holding my breath on that one.

Right on, Law Fairy. But not only is it the physical/emotional stress and potential additional trauma that make the requirement of a rape evidence collection exam so heinous. It's also the hundreds of dollars this can cost. And guess what? The state's not paying -- or they may make it contingent on your testifying in front of your rapist in court, no matter your age or condition. (Most likely, of course, is that they don't care because it's statistically most likely to be acquaintance rape, which is hard to prosecute due to cultural misogyny, and a lost case will hurt their precious conviction stats.)

yeah i was thinking that may be it. but, when are women going to wake up and realize they ABSOLUTELY need a full rape exam + press charges. i guess a change in society would necessitate that. However, i feel as though since no one else will help women, we need to take the reins and report it as much as possible.

but really, i guess its hard to really say what is going through most peoples heads after such a horrendous situation. but i just feel very uneasy about women not getting a test and not reporting it. what is the answer here?

Unfortunately, I think that for many of us who have not experienced (thank goodness) such a heinous thing as rape, it is easy to say, "Oh well, I'd definitely go, and I'd definitely report it."

I don't think it's that simple. I recently had an experience with a peeping tom, nowhere near a rape, but I felt extremely violated and upset for quite a while. The cops who I reported this incident to were extremely rude and insensitive to the fact that a man was standing high up on my windowsill STARING down through the three inches at the top of my windows that aren't covered, at me naked (having just gotten out of the shower).

Now of course, I'm not trying to compare this to rape, but I was illogical at the moment, irrational, upset, etc. I am a strong, independent female, but not everyone acts the same in moments of crisis, and I agree with Law Fairy that we MUST stop treating victims as criminals. They need support and help, not skepticism and judgment.

I wouldn't have reported it if my foster mother (who is a nurse) hadn't dragged me to the hospital to get the exam. And it never even made it to court. So, I could say, I went through that exam for nothing, and it is humiliating, painful (who likes the 'duck lips' honestly) and it adds on to the trauma.

Fortunately, mostly female nurses were around me (I think Mom had a lot to do with that though cause she worked there) and I talked to a female detective, who didn't seem like she knew what she was doing. But, when you're in a hospital there's no such thing as privacy, and there were several occasions during the exam that the door was opened and all could see.

When it didn't go to court, my mom told me I should be happy, it saved me from a lot of humilitaion and negative publicity. But that still doesn't make it right.

One could argue that evidence needs to be collected, and that evidence is inside the vagina. They also pluck pubic hairs, which words cannot describe how painful that is. Everyone was very supportive and nice to me. But I realise not everyone gets that kind of treatment, so in a way I had lucked out. It just makes me cringe when I see someone was raped on the news, or stories on how aweful they were treated at the hospital. It's frightening.

The least these hospitals can do is allow the victim the peace of mind of knowing that she won't be pregnant after a rape. She's been physically and emotionally traumatized. She's worried about STD's. She's worried about legal consequences. There is so much fear for her to have to deal with at once. Its absolutely cruel to impose any conditions on her receiving that pill. Not to mention its illegal!

see i dont think they are treating the victims here as criminals. if they were they would refuse to even administer an exam. what they are doing is being insensitive and not giving them what they need at that moment.

I'm not going to give these hospitals the benefit of the doubt that they're doing this to collect evidence against the rapist. Anti-choicers are really hung up on the idea that women who haven't been raped or (in the case of abortion) whose lives aren't really in danger from pregnancy are going to lie to get the reproductive health services that they need, and deserve.

Those hospitals are sending a message to rape victims that their word isn't good enough. They have to prove that they were raped, because, of course, the ground would open up if one of those devious women managed to get EC when they only had consensual sex.

We're talking about two different things here.

Should hospitals strongly encourage rape victims to take rape exams to collect evidence, at the height of their emotional trauma? Yes. Maybe. I don't know. It's probably a good idea to collect evidence as soon as possible, but you can't ethically force someone to undergo a medical procedure they don't want.

Should hospitals make it a REQUIREMENT to undergo an exam in order to receive medicine that prevents pregnancy after a rape? Absolutely not.

One has nothing to do with the other. It's like keshmeshi says: hospitals, who should be providing EC without questions in the first place, are basically calling rape victims liars. What other bodily crime allows a hospital to withhold treatment contingent upon the victim's naming a assailant?

Cycles- I totally agree. The option of EC should not be held over rape victim's heads as a "reward" for submitting to a rape collection kit exam. Any woman coming into the ER needing EC regardless of whether she has been raped or not, should be able to receive it. AFTER she's received the EC, the doctor can explain the benefits of doing a rape kit and suggest that it would be a very valuable tool in prosecuting the criminal, but submitting to an exam should not be a PREREQUISITE for receiving EC.

Andrea- yes, absolutely, and for katie's benefit, I am going to get personal (me, not her). Pain and feelings of violation are valid reasons not to submit to a rape exam. So is not having the $$. But there are other reasons that women don't subject themselves to this too. Years ago, I was raped by a wealthy, well-connected young man, whom I had dated off-and-on for several years. Now, what do you think my chances would have been in court - then or now? What would have been the point of a rape exam? I knew full well pressing charges would harm one person - ME. But EC, yeh, that would have been great.