War on Women Rages On

Amy Phillips Bursch, Media Relations Manager

A couple new fronts just opened in the war against women who have sex, whether it’s consensual or not. You know, sluts.

First up: A Tampa woman who was raped was given emergency contraception by her local rape crisis center. Some brands of EC involve taking one pill right away and the second pill 12 hours later. The woman took the first pill. She then reported her attack to the police – who promptly took her into custody on an arrest warrant for failure to pay restitution and failure to appear. Here’s what happened next, according to Courthouse News Service:

At the Hillsborough County Jail, staff confiscated her second pill. R.W. (the rape survivor) says she requested her second pill the next morning, but jail employee Michele Spinelli refused. ‘Spinelli told the Plaintiff that she would not give R.W. the pill because it was against Spinelli’s religious beliefs.’

You might want to finish these before going to jail. (Florian/Flickr)

REALLY? It’s disgusting enough that pharmacists are refusing to provide legal prescriptions – you know, DO THEIR JOBS – because of opposition to contraception. Now jail guards have veto power over decisions made by rape survivors? What’s next: Bus drivers refusing to drop young women off at Walgreens?  Security guards pulling birth control pills out of purses at metal detectors?

Luckily, R.W. will be allowed to sue. Whether young women in Calgary, Alberta, will have any legal recourse is another issue. According to the National Post, a Calgary bishop has decided that the HPV vaccine “contributes to promiscuity.” You know, turns girls into sluts:

Staring down the edict of a Calgary bishop who says the HPV vaccine contributes to promiscuity, a newly formed advocacy group is pushing Roman Catholic schools to allow students to be immunized against the sexually transmitted virus. Calgary is the only major city in Canada with a publicly funded school board* that withholds the vaccine on religious grounds, the group says. This puts the thousands of girls in the city and southern Alberta at risk of cervical cancer.

*My emphasis. For emphasis.

Keep in mind that the HPV vaccine works regardless of your sexual history. In other words, the bishop’s ban could be sentencing a woman who is raped to cervical cancer. Or a woman who is a virgin until her wedding night to cervical cancer. Not just those slutty slutty sluts.