"I felt total despair, anger, sadness, I am pro-choice, but having an abortion is not something I ever wanted to have to do."

The great municipal region of Ottawa-Gatineau, the nation's capital area, has a combined population of 1,054,253 people. Yet as local news organizations and even the National Post report, the administration of the Ottawa Hospital doesn't ensure that trained staff is available to provide critical health care and administer the sexual assault protocol to victims who are taken to Emergency. Until shameful stories made headlines, that is.

From here:

The Ottawa Hospital is the city's only provincially designated centre for sexual assault cases. The hospital's Civic campus houses the Sexual Assault and Partner Abuse Care Program, with a mandate to provide care "24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year," according to a 2006 protocol.

But hospital officials admit that they have not been meeting that standard in recent months, and that the problem has become "most acute" in the past three weeks. The hospital's roster of 15 specially trained sexual-assault nurse examiners has been reduced by almost half due to illness and unexpected leave.

A woman who asked the journalist who interviewed to call her 'Anita' when quoting her, said:

"It would have been good if they had it a couple of months ago, but I am glad it will be there for other women in the future."

Anita was attacked in the early morning of May 23. Police officers drove the 21-year-old university student to the Civic emergency room. [...]

After the nurse confirmed there were no sexual-assault nurses available, Anita says she was told to go home and that Richard Tomlinson, director of the Sexual Assault Support Program, would contact her in the morning.

"I knew that was not what should happen, and even the police officer looks at me and says, 'This is not how it should be done,' " Anita said.

Mr. Tomlinson and Anita communicated on Saturday morning, and she said she was offered the option of returning to the Civic for treatment at midnight on Sunday, almost 48 hours after the attack.

In the meantime, Anita would be unable to shower, in order to preserve evidence. The alternative, driving to Renfrew, was even less attractive, even though Mr. Tomlinson said the hospital would pay the taxi fare.

"At that point, I was pissed off, I was thinking 'This is ridiculous. Why the hell am I going to go all the way to Renfrew?' "

Anita decided she was done seeking treatment, even if it meant destroying evidence that might help police track down her attacker.

"I felt so gross, I felt like I was going to lose it if I couldn't shower," she said. "So I ended up taking a shower and giving up on the hospital."

She later told the police detective on her case about being turned away from the hospital.

"She told me I was the third case that weekend," said Anita, who is receiving counselling from a sexual-assault support worker.

A few weeks ago, Anita discovered she was pregnant.

"I felt total despair, anger, sadness," Anita said. "I am pro-choice, but having an abortion is not something I ever wanted to have to do."

It is common in the aftermath of sexual assaults to provide patients with the option of taking anti-virals to prevent sexually transmitted infections, and the morning-after pill, an emergency contraceptive that prevents pregnancy if used within three days of unprotected intercourse. Anita says no medical staff in the emergency room that night examined her, nor did they offer her medication.

More, much more here.

Rules regarding collection of evidence of sexual assault are strict.

Forensic Evidence Collection

A Sexual Assault Evidence Kit is used to collect medical evidence from the client's body and clothing to assist in legal proceedings. This evidence must be collected within 72 hours after the assault. [...] Photographs of the client's injuries can be taken and kept with the hospital chart should she/he wish to report to the police at a later date. If the police are involved at the time of the assault, they may take the photographs [...]

The defendant's lawyer, if unable to undermine the complainant's credibility, may challenge the integrity of the evidence collection process by calling the RN examiner to the witness stand.

Vicki McKenna, vice-president of the Ontario Nurses Association, said the Ottawa Hospital hasn't taken the issue seriously enough. She said many cities have dropped the on-call system in favour of permanent staffing. [...] McKenna said in addition to the low pay they receive on call, Ottawa's sexual assault nurses also sometimes have to fight to get paid for time they spend testifying in court.

Most RNs are women and the majority of sexual assault complainants are women. One wonders if that's the reason why the Ottawa Hospital doesn't consider the provision of this essential service a priority.

Where are the 'pro-lifers'?

Back here we examined the fact that feminists are nowhere to be found on all manner of important issues.

Let's start a new one: Where are the fetus fetishists/'pro-lifers'?

Like, where are the fetish fetishists on
the Catlick Church's opposition to an abortion for a 80-pound 9-year-old girl raped by her step-father and carrying twins that would certainly endanger her life and maybe kill her?

Hmmmmm?

Some 'culture of life' you got going there.

Let's get on it, shall we? Where are the so-called pro-lifers on this one?

ADDED: Go read A Midwife in Training on this.

Italy's Terri Schiavo

Unbelievable. From Pharyngula a link to a story about Italy's Terri Schiavo (emphasis mine):

The Italian government has been plunged into a constitutional crisis over the fate of a 38-year-old woman who has been in a coma for the past 17 years. Eluana Englaro was left in a vegetative state after a car crash in 1992. After a decade-long court battle, doctors reduced her nutrition on Friday in preparation for removing her feeding tubes, which her father claims would be in accordance with her wishes.

But in an extraordinary turn of events, the country's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, after consultation with the Vatican, has issued an emergency decree stating that food and water cannot be suspended for any patient depending upon them, reversing the earlier court ruling. On issuing the emergency decree, Berlusconi declared: "This is murder. I would be failing to rescue her. I'm not a Pontius Pilate."

Justifying his campaign to save Englaro's life, the prime minister added that, physically at least, she was "in the condition to have babies", a remark described by La Stampa newspaper as "shocking".

...
The case has deeply divided Italian society and raised concerns over the influence of the Vatican. Yesterday Pope Benedict indirectly referred to Englaro in a message delivered to mark the World Day of the Sick, stating that society had a duty to defend "the absolute and supreme dignity of every human being" even when "weak and shrouded in the mystery of suffering".

What is it with men's weird fascination with raping sleeping women?

Go read the comments at Pharyngula.


h/t CC at Canadian Cynic

UPDATE: Ms Englaro has died.

Teen pregnancy: no longer shameful, still a concern.

It may be that the intense media visibility awarded to Bristol Palin’s unintended pregnancy will bring about a shift in public attitudes towards teen’s sex education.

Sarah Palin’s extreme and fundamentalist views on sex education, rape, and recently, on bombing abortion clinics have given these issues prominence in the US presidential election campaign. A successful fund raising initiative for Planned Parenthood in the US was launched by email. Thousands of thank you cards were sent to the Republican VP candidate in acknowledgement of her pivotal role in provoking US citizens to donate to Planned Parenthood.

Shortly after Palin’s nomination, e-mails began circulating suggesting that pro-choice women make donations to Planned Parenthood in her honor. As of this week, Planned Parenthood has received more than 40,000 donations in Palin’s name, totaling more than $1 million.

And tabloids reported that Jamie Lynn Spears may have unintentionally become pregnant again. Regardless of whether the rumour is founded or not, the public reaction seems to indicate that nobody believes in that quaint saying ‘Ignorance is bliss’ any longer. Even the young yet wise-cracking Juno took responsibility for her mistake and took charge of her choice.

A sensible, well-informed young woman observed the media frenzy around the Palin and Spears unintended pregnancies and wrote a well-researched article about concerns regarding adolescent sexuality.

Every year in the U.S, over one million teenagers become pregnant. Most recently, pregnant teens have flooded Planned Parenthood health centers. Last year, Planned Parenthood centers provided sex education to 1.2 million teens and adults. This year will yield roughly 750,000 pregnant teenage girls, which is a number 12 times more than that of people diagnosed with AIDS in 2008, as well as the total number of persons expected to die from some form of cancer this year.

In regards to percentages, this averages out to about 11 percent of all U.S. children being birthed by teens this year. By the time a teen has reached the age of 19, seven in ten teens have experienced at least one sexual encounter. … It is important that sex education be definitely enforced within schools and should not only approach the idea of sex and teens from an abstinence-only standpoint. According to an analysis of more than 115 studies researched by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy (NC), teen sex education programs proved ineffective when including only abstinence-only material, by which teens were neither encouraged nor influenced to abstain or delay sex until a more age-appropriate time.

According to Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, effective sex education is based on “medically accurate information” that is both abstinence-based and also teaches contraception and proper sex initiation, which has proven to be more effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies. Richards argues that for the past eight years, roughly $1.5 billion or more of taxpayers’ money has been “wasted” on ineffective abstinence-only programs. Richards also demands that education and initiation of sex education must change with the next administration because the current policies have proven unsuccessful. “When it comes to sexuality education, there should be no debate. The only way our children can be prepared is to be informed; this isn’t about ideology, it’s about the health and safety of our kids.”

First posted at Birth Pangs