Jdt told me about this post on First Draft. It links to a Denver Post article with some mind-boggling things in it:
Imagine two rape victims taken to the same hospital emergency room. Imagine them put in adjoining examination rooms.
Let's say they have identical injuries.
Presume everything about them is the same except for where they are in their menstrual cycles.
Do they deserve access to the same medical treatment?
At most Catholic hospitals in Colorado, they can't get it.
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 the victim can end up pregnant by her rapist.
It's very much like testing for bacterial pneumonia in a patient and prescribing antibiotics only if the patient doesn't have the disease yet! Those that test positive can just go and suffer. It makes no medical sense.
On the other hand, pope Ratzo would probably argue that it makes excellent doctrinal sense. The potential life of a rapist's child takes precedence over some woman who has merely been mauled and impregnated against her will. You know, "every sperm is sacred".
But it really is stupid. And it is two-faced: the hospitals are pretending that they go along with the recommendation of telling patients about emergency contraception when all the time they hide this information from those rape victims who need it most.