In 1916, Margaret Sanger was arrested for running a women's birth control clinic.

Catholic Medical Centers Trick Women into Giving Birth Against Their Will

By Kirsten Anderberg (http://www.kirstenanderberg.com)
Written January 2, 2014

This article consists of three women buskers' answers to a set of interview questions about the topic of busking. The interviewer, and author of this article, Kirsten Anderberg, has been a busker for over 30 years. The article is organized with the question being posed first, then all three women's answers following each question. This organization allows the reader the most thorough means of comparison between the women's answers. There is so little documentation of women buskers' lives, throughout history, it is a void; I offer this article as one in a continuing series of women busker interview articles to try to at least leave a record of contemporary women street performers for future generations to enjoy.

Last night on the news I heard that the topic of the right to birth control and Catholic-run institutions has reared its ugly head in the Supreme Court again. Even though President Obama and the Supreme Court have made it clear that access to birth control is a woman's right, Catholic and other religious institutions are appealing for special loopholes to allow these religious organizations to bypass the laws regarding women's rights to such services from their medical providers. Due to this issue having the attention of legislators and law makers in this country again, I feel it necessary to share my story so that people can understand the intricacies that play out in real time, in real women's lives, regarding this issue of access to birth control. When I heard that Supreme Court has recently allowed religious groups to not cover birth control again (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/supreme-court-temporarily-allows-religious-groups-not-to-cover-birth-control/2014/01/01/8780a032-7309-11e3-8b3f-b1666705ca3b_story.html), it reminded me of an incident I endured in Eugene, Oregon, at Sacred Heart Hospital, now using the name Sacred Heart/PeaceHealth (http://www.peacehealth.org/sacred-heart-university-district/Pages/default.aspx), a Catholic institution in the heart of town. On their website, they say Sacred Heart aka "PeaceHealth is a private, nonprofit, Catholic-sponsored health care system." I can say with 100% certainty that the Sacred Heart Hospital in Eugene, OR tried to *trick* me into a pregnancy and birth, against my will, when I was 40 years of age due to their "unspoken" contraception policies. The problem at Sacred Heart/PeaceHealth in Eugene, OR is symptomatic of problems women face with regards to control of their own bodies and access to legal health care all over the country.

In 2000, I was a 40 year old woman living in Eugene, Oregon (U.S.A.). I had used birth control responsibly my entire life and had only one child (who was at the time 15 years old). I had no history of irresponsibility with either pregnancies or sexual safety issues, and actually was/am an advocate of safer sex practices. In 2000, I had an unfortunate incident where the condom broke during sex. Terrified that I was going to get pregnant, I rushed to my doctor the following day, requesting the "Emergency Contraception Morning-After Pill" or "Plan B Pill" (http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/emergency-contraception-morning-after-pill-4363.asp).

There is a 72 hour window for maximum efficiency when using the "Morning-After Pill." Now this pill, also called the "Plan B Pill" can be purchased without a prescription from pharmacies in CA and WA in 2014, but back in 2000, you had to have a prescription to get access to this pill. Even with it being legal in many states, it can be hard to gain access to this pill due to Catholics and other persons citing religious reasons, tricking women, blocking them, and stalling them from getting access to this pill for the 72 hours it could work, until it is rendered useless and a birth is eminent. I am angered that this happened to me in Eugene, OR, and thus want to share my story with you as it is symptomatic of the intricacies of how this plays out in real women's lives today, as well as in the recent past.

In Eugene, OR, when I lived there in 2000, the only medical treatment I could get that would accept my OR State medical insurance (for low-income residents) was at the Catholic Hospital in the center of town, which also had doctors and nurses available for appointments (i.e., it was not just a hospital, but also a medical center). It was named Sacred Heart Hospital, but the locals in town called it "Scarred Heart" and I soon found out why it had earned that nickname. So, the first problem is I did not have alternatives: I was forced, by the state's insurance policies, to go to Sacred Heart for help. If I could have gone to a women's clinic run by feminists, certainly I would have chosen that instead. But I went to Sacred Heart to see my doctor for an emergency appointment to get this Morning-After Pill. I waited for about 2 hours, then I met with my doctor, who was an older, white, conservative-looking man. I told him I needed the Morning-After Pill. He grilled me about all sorts of things about my sex life and my past. I had only one child, was 40 years old, was using safer sex/condoms when the accident happened, and had no history whatsoever of promiscuousness or irresponsibility with pregnancies, but you know what? None of that really should have mattered. If women are allowed to make their own decisions about their own bodies and their own medical treatment, I don't think you should have to pass some kind of moral judgment test to get access to birth control! Yet I found myself reciting all sorts of personal, irrelevant information to this man/doctor in my attempt to gain access to legal birth control. Finally, he left me alone in the room. Almost an hour passed. I was then told he had to leave for an emergency and to return the following day and he would help me. Remember, this pill works most effectively when used as close to the time of the accident as possible. Each hour made a difference. But I was told to return the next day. I was annoyed, but I left, to return the next morning.

The next morning I went back to Sacred Heart in downtown Eugene as I was told. I sat waiting for an hour, then was put into a room for an hour, then I questioned why no one was seeing me. They then put me into another room for an hour, then told me everyone had gone to lunch and I would have to come back after lunch!! I was thoroughly angry at them by this time but did not think I had any choice and certainly I did not think they were doing all this on purpose to keep me from legal birth control access! But, that indeed is what was happening! And it has happened to many other women too. Sacred Heart Hospital in Eugene, OR literally TRICKS women into missing the 72 hour mark for this pill and thereby tricks women into pregnancies and births they did not want and asked for proper medical/legal help to avoid. This is outrageous behavior for a medical center but this is the type of behavior we are condoning when we give religions loopholes to opt out of legal access to birth control for women in America.

I spent the entire rest of day two trying to get someone to help me at Sacred Heart. I was shuffled around, from department to department, room to room. Nothing they said or did made sense. I even went to the hospital ombudsman and lodged a legal complaint during the many hours I was trapped there on the second day. They somehow kept me from any medical help the entire day two. I returned the morning of day three, the last day I could even use this pill, to more bizarre deferments and confusions about why I could never actually get someone to see me for this pill! After about 2 more hours of a run around, with them constantly saying they were going to help me but had all these things that kept interrupting me getting help, for days…I used their own phone and phone book in the lobby and looked up "Planned Parenthood" in Eugene. I called them and told them what I was going through. They said that Sacred Heart had been playing that game for years and they were trying to wait me out, so I missed the 72 hour mark, forcing me to be pregnant and to give birth. I was shocked. Planned Parenthood told me to walk to their clinic immediately and they would help me. Their clinic was about a quarter mile from Sacred Heart Hospital and I had no car so I walked, briskly. When I got to Planned Parenthood, they were kind, welcoming and had the pill in me within 30 minutes of me arriving. They also gave it to me for free since I was low-income and since my insurance only worked at Scarred Heart.

THIS, MY FRIENDS, IS WHY PEOPLE NEED TO SUPPORT PLANNED PARENTHOOD AND I WOULD LIKE TO ASK FOLKS TO CONSIDER DONATING TO THEM TODAY AT https://secure.ppaction.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=pp_ppol_Nondirected_OneTimeGift. (I am not affiliated with them at all, I just know that they do good work and deserve funding.)

After I finally had gotten proper medical care through Planned Parenthood, not from my own medical care provider, Sacred Heart, I began to look into what in the hell happened at Sacred Heart. I not only lodged more complaints with Sacred Heart's customer service department, but I also went to the local newspaper and told a reporter what had happened to me. I wanted to make sure that women in Eugene knew that Sacred Heart would do this and to know that Planned Parenthood was the only place to go for proper birth control in Eugene. When the local reporter looked into this, she ended up reporting in the local paper that Sacred Heart told her that they have an "unspoken policy" not to give the "Morning-After Pill" to women for "ethical and moral/religious reasons." I remember they had some confusing technical name they made up for this policy but this was the reality of it all.

When you look at the website for Sacred Heart (now called the PeaceHealth medical centers) regarding its current, 2014, policies about reproductive health and contraception issues, you can see the vague and dishonest wording they are using even today. Most women do not realize these are this "medical center's" policies, I am sure. On their own website, retrieved on January 2, 2014, at http://www.peacehealth.org/peace-island/Pages/Answering-Your-Questions-Reproductive-Health,-End-of-Life-Care,-Discrimination--.aspx, you can at least now see PeaceHealth's supposed policies, whereas when I went there in 2000 these were "untold policies," as they told the newspaper. But even now, these policies are vaguely worded at best. On their website the following question and answer are provided: "Question: "Would contraceptive prescriptions be made available to patients requesting them, and could they be filled in a PeaceHealth pharmacy?" Answer: Decisions concerning family planning, including contraception, are made privately between patients and their doctors; contraceptive prescriptions may be provided, and they can be filled at a pharmacy operated by PeaceHealth. Emergency contraception (also known as Plan B or "Morning-After Pill") is offered as medically appropriate for cases of sexual assault following a negative pregnancy test. RU486, an abortion-inducing drug, will not be provided by a PeaceHealth facility." Here they clearly say they will not give a woman access to the Plan B/Morning-After Pill unless she was raped/sexually assaulted AND somehow also had a negative pregnancy test!

Twenty-one states currently have laws on the books about women's rights to access the Plan B pill, including Oregon. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures' website (http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/emergency-contraception-state-laws.aspx), "Sixteen of these states-Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin-and the District of Columbia have enacted legislation requiring hospitals or health care facilities to provide information about and/or initiate emergency contraception therapy to women who have been sexually assaulted." This explains why Sacred Heart made that concession about making the Plan B pill available only to women who have been sexually assaulted. If I had gone into Sacred Heart, and lied, saying I was sexually assaulted, even that would not be enough. They also require a negative pregnancy test! Nine states, Alaska, California, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Vermont, and Washington, "allow pharmacists to initiate emergency contraception drug therapy if they are working in collaboration with a physician, and/or after they have completed a training program in emergency contraception" meaning you can get the Plan B pill from a pharmacist without a doctor's appointment in these states.

So even though the state of Oregon has laws on the book regarding women's rights to the Plan B pill, and even though 16 states, including the other 2 west coast states, allow pharmacists to give out the pill, Oregon's Sacred Heart Hospital/PeaceHealth Medical Centers play mind games with women, lying to them, and stalling their use of the Plan B pill to fulfill their own hidden agendas, with no consideration for the woman's desires or the unwanted child's life to come. By not being completely TRANSPARENT about their policies when women ask for help, in person, at Sacred Heart/PeaceHealth in Eugene, OR, they literally TRICK women into missing the window for use of the Plan B pill. How many hundreds of unwanted children has Sacred Heart forced upon women in poverty against their will using this "moral" enforcement methodology?

This is the statement made at the top of PeaceHealth's webpage at http://www.peacehealth.org/peace-island/Pages/Answering-Your-Questions-Reproductive-Health,-End-of-Life-Care,-Discrimination--.aspx: "PeaceHealth physicians and health care providers respect the organization's heritage and its policies which apply to beginning and end-of-life issues while carrying out its mission of healing and compassionate care." What that means in plain English is this Catholic medical facility is against birth control and will do whatever it can to prevent contraception (aka "beginning") and abortion ("end-of-life issues") to carry out its RELIGIOUS and MORAL missions, which immediately cancels out the "healing and compassionate care" part of that sentence. This is a facility which openly accepts federal and state funding to enforce its own religious and moral code on low-income women FORCED to go to Sacred Heart/PeaceHealth due to the fact that no other medical providers will accept the low-income state medical insurance from the state of Oregon. So Oregon State is FORCING RELIGIOUS DOGMA upon women to go to PeaceHealth without options, due to insurance limitations, then they are subjected to religious and moral dogma from their medical providers when trying to get to legal birth control options. They are even lied to, and kept in the dark, as I was, of the facilities' religious guidelines and its contraception policies. I can guarantee you that women going to PeaceHealth today are not immediately told that the facility is religiously and morally against contraception for women. I believe that information should be required BY LAW to be told to every woman entering PeaceHealth and that an ALTERNATIVE to this religious medical institution must be provided for by the Oregon state insurance system. Oregon allows patients to use their medical insurance from the state at the provider of their choice but when only 1-2 providers in the town take that insurance, there is no choice. Low-income women in Eugene, OR are being lied to and not allowed transparent access to birth control and are forced to use this dogmatic/religious medical system as no one else will accept their medical insurance. This is why it is so important that Planned Parenthood gives contraception free to those who need it.

You will also see on the PeaceHealth website (http://www.peacehealth.org/peace-island/Pages/Answering-Your-Questions-Reproductive-Health,-End-of-Life-Care,-Discrimination--.aspx) that not only do they not help with abortion services "for the purpose of voluntarily ending a pregnancy" but they also lie about referrals. The site says "patients requesting services PeaceHealth does not provide are referred to outside agencies for further information on available options." That is a bold-faced lie. They STALL women asking for the Morning-After/Plan B pill, they do not refer them elsewhere. I would like to see any records owned by PeaceHealth that show even ONE referral to an outside agency when a woman came in asking for access to the Plan B pill. I do not believe even one such referral has ever taken place, regardless of the rhetoric on their website. Additionally, PeaceHealth says, "PeaceHealth does not refer directly to providers who perform procedures prohibited at PeaceHealth facilities." This is why they did not refer me to Planned Parenthood, but rather lied to me and hid that they were not going to give me the Plan B pill. So do not expect PeaceHealth to 1) tell you they are not going to give you access to contraception and 2) to tell you where you can go to get it. Instead, expect them to lie to you, to trick you, to stall you, until you can no longer use the Plan B pill and must go through with the pregnancy…which insures them a lot more money in the future in prenatals, birthing costs, children's health costs, etc. I would even argue it is not for religious or moral reasons but rather FINANCIAL reasons that Sacred Heart/PeaceHealth lies to women and tries to force them to give birth against their own wills.

PeaceHealth clearly says, "PeaceHealth does not promote or condone contraception, but contraception may be prescribed if medically indicated." And remember earlier, I cited them saying, "contraceptive prescriptions may be provided" after private consultations with the doctor. MAY is a pretty strong word there. A woman MAY be able to get access to contraception after her moral/religious assessment from a PeaceHealth Moral Enforcement Officer aka "doctor," and she MAY be prescribed contraceptives if "medically indicated…" What utter nonsense. Why doesn't PeaceHealth just admit they are NOT going to give women access to contraception or the Plan B Pill, unless very serious circumstances "indicate a medical necessity" as deemed so by their Catholic, white, male morality police. Why don't they just admit, outright, to each and every woman who comes into PeaceHealth asking for the Plan B/Morning-After Pill - the TRUTH: PEACEHEALTH WILL NOT PRESCRIBE THE PLAN B PILL UNLESS YOU ARE SEXUALLY ASSAULTED AND HAVE A NEGATIVE PREGNANCY TEST AND IT WILL NOT REFER YOU TO WHO WILL HELP YOU, instead of playing some kind of highly immoral mind games, using lies and coercion on its women patients? Is it providing "exceptional health care" as they claim to behave like this? I think not. Is this providing "healing and compassionate care?" Not at all.

Shame on PeaceHealth in Oregon and elsewhere that it operates, but this situation is symptomatic of problems in accessing contraception for women in 2014 all over America. Male doctors and patriarchal religions are still trying to place their virgin/whore fetish, their motherhood fetish, unwillingly onto women even into the 21st century. What PeaceHealth does, by lying to its patients, is undermine the entire trust factor of a doctor-patient relationship. It also should be against the law to lie as they do. I ask the President, Supreme Court Judges, and legislators to look at a woman's right to choose and to balance that with these religious medical institutions which lie to women as Sacred Heart/PeaceHealth does. Please at the very least create legislation that REQUIRES BY LAW ALL HOSPITALS/MEDICAL CENTERS TO STATE - IN PERSON AND IN WRITING - THEIR RELIGIOUS AFFILIATIONS AND THEIR CONTRACEPTIVE POLICIES OPENLY TO ALL WOMEN WHO COME ASKING FOR THOSE SERVICES.

And again, the best thing you can do right now to make sure women are given choices about their own bodies and contraception issues is to donate, today, to Planned Parenthood at https://secure.ppaction.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=pp_ppol_Nondirected_OneTimeGift.

For more articles written by Kirsten Anderberg, visit http://www.kirstenanderberg.com. To see a selection of books written by K. Anderberg, visit http://www.amazon.com/Kirsten-Anderberg/e/B004M3MZM2

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