Although Louisiana closed all three abortion clinics on Friday, the battle continues in court over when the state’s almost total ban on abortions – including pregnancies resulting from rape or incest – will be permanently imposed.
Meanwhile, state health officials are trying to sort out how to use emergency contraception to prevent pregnancies from rape. It is a kind of lifeline – and is often described as such – for victims of sexual assault in the new world of no abortions.
Emergency contraception is the correct term for what is often called Plan B or the morning-after pill. Depending on the medication, the pills can be taken three to five days after unprotected sex. The pills can prevent or delay the release of the woman’s egg from the ovary, which is called ovulation, which often prevents the egg from being fertilized and implanted, thus preventing pregnancy.
But the emergency contraception parts of the two laws, Act 513 and Act 545, which were passed in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling, was written without regard to existing procedures, and they imposed obligations on some hospitals, especially those in rural areas. areas, never before grounded.
“All licensed hospitals in this state” must provide information on and make available the pills that prevent pregnancies to all rape victims on January 1, says Act 513. Police do not need to be informed and national studies say about 85% of rape victims report . But a pregnancy test should be performed, and if the results are negative, emergency contraception should be made available. Many, if not most, hospitals do not have those pills.
The new laws, which specifically address rape victims, also did not take into account that emergency contraceptive medication is already sold at pharmacies to everyone without the need for a doctor’s prescription.
“It’s especially important now that women know about this option,” said Michelle Erenberg, of New Orleans-based LIFT Louisiana, which advocates for greater access to abortions.
Although they rarely agree, Louisiana Right to Life’s Benjamin Clapper agrees with Erenberg on this point.
“It’s important that the abortion bills released emergency contraception,” said Clapper, whose New Orleans-based group is responsible for many anti-abortion laws.
Lawmakers strongly felt that emergency contraception should be included to give the victim a way to prevent pregnancy through rape, he added.
However, Clapper is clear that the rape victim must take a pregnancy test before receiving emergency contraception.
“An abortion is defined as when pregnancy begins,” Clapper said. “Once a pregnancy could be verified, then implantation took place so that abortion could not take place.”
Many in the anti-abortion community define life as beginning when the sperm enters the ovum, or fertilization, which can occur immediately or sometimes takes several days. Others say it is when the fertilized egg attaches to the uterine wall and begins to grow, or implant, which takes a few more days.
Legislators and advocates against abortion struggled to introduce the wording of the definitions in a way that would allow emergency contraception.
Tom Costanza, executive director of the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the wording of Act 513 was reviewed by the church and found to comply with paragraph 36 of the Catholic ethical and religious precepts that require compassion for victims of sexual assault.
“A woman who has been raped should be able to defend herself against a possible conception of the sexual assault,” Costanza said, “… and after appropriate testing, she can be treated with appropriate medication to prevent ovulation.”
When Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards signed one of those instruments into law, he noted that the legislation would not create an exception to allow abortions in cases of rape and incest, “but made it clear that pregnancy and the life of an unborn child begins with implantation, rather than fertilization. ”
The distinction, Edwards wrote, “makes it clear that emergency contraception can be given to victims of rape and incest before a pregnancy can be clinically diagnosed.”
But it can create a problem for hospitals.
“The law requires hospitals to have that medication and offer it to victims. But many hospitals do not have it on hand, ”said Alix Tarnowsky, Vice President of Survival Services for Sexual Trauma Awareness and Response.
STAR provides personal attorneys who assist victims through hospital visits, the procedures for gathering evidence, and treatment following a sexual assault.
Lee Chastant, administrator of West Feliciana Parish Hospital, knew the bills were being considered but was not told they were signed into law.
“We have a few ways to go about climbing,” Chastant said. He said he would convene the hospital’s committees to determine policies and consequences.
“We’re not even close,” Chastant said. “The forensic component is so specific that we do not want to do it because we do not do it, but maybe once every five years.”
Currently, as a rape victim to the community hospital in St. Louis. Francisville arrives, doctors stabilize the medical problems, then send the patient to a Baton Rouge hospital.
Mortuaries, organized in nine regions, oversee the collection of evidence. The details – even the hospital to which victims are sent – vary according to the procedures outlined by each region.
In the Baton Rouge area, coroner Dr. Beau Clark said, victims of sexual assault are being sent to one of several city hospitals where a team is meeting.
A coroner’s investigator gathers evidence, the so-called rape set; a forensic trained nurse and physician treat the victim (this is presumably when a pregnancy test is administered and medication will be offered); and a STAR patient advocate or an advocacy center advises the victim throughout the process. If the victim allows it, the police and prosecutors are called.
Clark said his staff did 324 exams during 2021.
In Jefferson Parish, adult patients are sent to Tulane Lakeside Hospital. Children and teenagers go to the children’s hospital’s emergency room. In St. Tammany Parish is taking the coroner’s staff to the hospital where the victim went.
The Rape Abuse Incest National Network reports that 82% of rape victims are under 18, and 8 out of 10 of assaults were committed by someone who knows the victim. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculated that 3.1% to 5% of rape victims became pregnant. A total of 2,404 people were locked up in state facilities for rape convictions.
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