Press Releases

Emergency pill for rape victims moves forward
Colleen Slevin - Associated Press
1/29/04

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A bill that would require Colorado hospitals to tell rape victims about emergency contraception won initial approval from lawmakers today, despite wrenching testimony from a woman who says she is happy she went through with her pregnancy.

"There are days when I look at him and see somebody I don't recognize, but I don't regret having him at all," said the 33-year-old Colorado Springs woman, holding the 11-month-old boy on her lap. She asked that her name not be used because she fears retribution from her attacker.

The bill would allow workers who object on moral or religious grounds to refer patients to a colleague for counseling. Hospitals don't have to administer the pill to pregnant women.

In a shaking voice, the woman said she didn't think rape victims are in the right frame of mind to think about "life and death issues".

Another woman, a senior at the University of Denver, told members of the House Health, Environment, Welfare and Institutions Committee that hospital workers never told her about emergency contraception after she was raped. Neither did campus health workers during a follow-up visit.

"The only thing the health center could offer me was their condolences," she said. "I don't know what I would have done if I had been pregnant. I would have an abortion - I couldn't have a child through rape."

Emergency contraception is a higher dose of birth control pills, and it can prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of intercourse. If a woman already is pregnant, the pills have no effect, which is why emergency contraception hasn't proved as controversial as RU-486, the abortion pill.

Critics still see emergency contraception as a form of abortion because it could stop a fertilized egg from being implanted in the uterus. Many in the medical community believe pregnancy doesn't start until implantation, and Dr. Carol Stamm of the Colorado Gynecology and Obstetric Society told lawmakers the drug usually works by preventing a woman from ovulating.
The measure now goes to the full House for debate. Last year, a similar measure was passed by the House but defeated in the Senate.
Rep. Bill Sinclair, R-Colorado Springs, an abortion opponent, said "extreme conservatives" in his party wrongly labeled it as an abortion bill and so he agreed to co-sponsor this year's bill with Rep. Betty Boyd, D-Lakewood.

Rep. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, said he opposed the bill because he believes it changes the definition of pregnancy in Colorado. Rep. Ramey Johnson of Lakewood, a nurse and one of two Republicans to support the bill today, said she didn't see it as a partisan issue.

"When you go to an emergency room, nobody should ever be denied accurate information," she said. "What you decide to do with it is your own business." Boyd said the measure is needed because there isn't a uniform policy among hospitals.

A survey by NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado found that a quarter of urban hospitals and 32 percent of hospitals in rural and mountain areas don't provide information about emergency contraception.