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Rape Treatment Still Denied
By Barry Yeoman
Originally published as an editorial in Glamour, May 2005
THE SUMMER BEFORE HER SOPHOMORE YEAR of college, Anna Cleek, 19, was walking home from an Albuquerque, New Mexico, bus stop when a man grabbed her from behind and forced her into a pickup truck. He raped her, slashed her breasts and thighs, then left her, naked and bleeding, in the street.
A few weeks later a still-traumatized Cleek came down with what she thought was the flu. She visited her doctor, who delivered horrifying news: Cleek, a virgin until the rape, was pregnant. "I went ballistic," she says. "I tore his office apart. They had to sedate me."
It wasn't until the next month, following an abortion, that Cleek found out there was a medication that could have safely prevented the pregnancy. Known as emergency contraception (EC), or the morning-after pill, it has an 89 percent success rate when taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex. Learning this, Cleek confronted her doctor and asked why he hadn't offered her EC immediately after the rape. "He told me that EC wasn't part of the normal protocol when they did a rape kit," says Cleek, who most recently served as the director of the Tri-County Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence in Livingston, Montana.
That was 1984. In 2002-a full 18 years later-rape victims still weren't being offered EC, and Glamour published an outraged editorial on the topic. At that time we cited research showing that 80 percent of victims were not given the option when they were treated in hospital emergency rooms. Now, three years and countless victims later, little has changed; three out of every four rape victims are still kept in the dark about EC or struggle unsuccessfully to get it in emergency rooms. But even more shocking, the U.S. government has just added a roadblock that could prevent future victims from getting the help they need.
Last fall the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) published its first national recommendations for sexual-assault medical examinations, which are widely viewed as a model for hospitals and state agencies. The 130-page document is comprehensive-it even suggests that examiners avoid wearing certain jewelry when treating mentally impaired victims-except for one appalling omission: There is no mention of EC. The department offers scant justification for this oversight. "I just have no comment," DOJ spokesman Eric Holland told Glamour. The DOJ later sent a statement that said, in part, "the language is purposefully broad to provide users with the opportunity to tailor the protocol to their local community standards."
Many women's health advocates believe that's just a smoke screen. "The Justice Department seems to be buying into the anti-choice movement's false claim that emergency contraception causes an abortion," says Gil Kulick, spokesman for International Planned Parenthood Federation's Western Hemisphere Region in New York City. In fact, doctors say EC does not end an existing pregnancy, but inhibits ovulation, fertilization or possibly implantation of a fertilized egg. The drug could help prevent the 22,000 rape-related pregnancies each year.
Though theoretically a victim can obtain EC from her own doctor, many women, like Anna Cleek back in 1984, don't know the option exists. Besides, getting the pills is a heavy burden to bear, says Barbara Sheaffer, medical advocacy coordinator of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape: "After going through a traumatic assault and exam, a victim is supposed to reach her doctor and find a 24-hour pharmacy at 3 a.m.? That's ludicrous, and sometimes impossible."
But you can help. U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) is sponsoring legislation this year-the Best Help for Rape Victims Act-that would require the DOJ to recommend that every clinic provide EC information to assault victims. She believes the measure could pass-if lawmakers hear from their constituents. (To contact legislators, use the directories at thomas.loc.gov.) "Federal law should not make fathers out of rapists," Maloney says. "We should be compassionately helping rape victims recover from sexual attacks, not withholding important health information from them."
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