Wednesday, January 31, 2007

The Prison Warden's Conscience Clause



This is an example of a situation where denying someone emergency contraception leaves the woman with no alternatives:

Over the past 72 hours, a 21-year-old woman in Florida was raped, jailed on an outstanding warrant (for a 2003 juvenile arrest), and blocked from taking emergency contraception because a jail worker had "religious objections" to the medication. This is an absolute outrage.

According to the St. Petersburg Times,

"A doctor had given her Plan B, the so-called 'morning-after pill' approved by the FDA, to prevent pregnancy. But Moore [her attorney] said a medical supervisor at the jail refused to let her take the second of the two pills on Sunday."

The woman was not allowed to take the second pill until Monday afternoon. For emergency contraception to work, the second pill must be taken within 12 hours. This woman was refused for 36. Only after media inquiries did the jail allow the woman to take the second pill.

Jailing a victim right after a rape???

Whatever ones opinions on that, I'm pretty sure that the jail worker wasn't acting legally. But that would not be much of a consolation for the raped woman should she turn out pregnant now.