Quote:A 25-year-old possible rape victim was reportedly refused a basic exam at two Catholic hospitals in Cologne last month. The Church says the impression that rape victims can't be treated at Catholic hospitals is "false."
Quote:The local daily newspaper, the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, published an article Wednesday detailing the experience of an emergency center doctor, Irmgard Maiworm, one night last month. Maiworm told the paper that on Dec. 15, a 25-year-old woman came in to see her, accompanied by her mother.
The woman told the doctor that she had been out with friends on Friday night, and that at one point she went blank, not remembering anything until coming to on a bench in a different part of the city Saturday afternoon.
"I immediately suspected that this young woman might have been drugged with a date-rape drug, so that rape was not to be ruled out," Maiworm told the paper. The woman reportedly complained of pains and difficulty going to the bathroom and wore soiled clothes.
With her permission, Maiworm contacted the police and informed the woman of the risks of pregnancy and gave her a prescription for the "morning-after pill." She told the paper that she then called the gynecology department at the neighboring St. Vincent's Hospital to arrange for the woman to have a gynecological exam, only to be told by the doctor there that such an exam would not be possible.
According to the paper, the doctor told Maiworm that the hospital's ethics commission, after consulting with Cardinal Joachim Meisner, had decided not to conduct exams after sexual attacks, so as not to be in the position of having to advise on possible unwanted pregnancies resulting from the attacks.
source:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germ...78215.html
