Witnesses testified to the House Crime and Public Safety Committee this week about multiple bills that would require emergency contraceptives in hospitals.
House bills 3460 and 2628 are identical and seek to establish the Compassionate Assistance for Rape Emergencies Act, or CARE, which would require all hospitals and health care facilities to verbally offer emergency contraception to a sexual assault victim and to provide emergency contraception if the patient requests it.
Rep. Jaclyn Zimmermann, D-Manchester, HB 2628's sponsor, spoke to the committee about the bills in a hearing Tuesday. She clarified that emergency contraception pills are different from abortion drugs.
"Emergency contraception prevents ovulation; it does not abort a pregnancy," Zimmermann said. "No egg is released. There's no potential that there will be fertilization that happens there."
To prevent pregnancy, emergency contraception must be administered to a victim within five days of a sexual assault. These contraceptives are most effective within 24 hours, but Tonya Vega, the chief nursing executive of SANE Healthcare Services, said that victims don't often seek care in those 24 hours.
"We are seeing victims more and more come later post-assault than right fresh because it takes some time to figure out what hospitals they can go to," Vega said.
SANE Healthcare Services serves 58 Missouri hospitals and rural community access centers by providing exams and treatment for sexual assault victims in accordance with standards set by the Justice Department and International Association of Forensic Nurses.
Because not all Missouri hospitals and health care centers are required to offer and provide emergency contraceptives, victims of sexual assault may have to travel to a different care center or pharmacy to receive that treatment.
Plan B, a well-known emergency contraceptive, is available over the counter but is only effective up to 72 hours after sexual assault and has age and weight restrictions. Ella is the contraceptive pill that Vega said her organization prefers because it doesn't have as strict restrictions and is effective up to five days after sexual assault.
However, Ella requires a prescription. Vega said the lack of access especially affects adolescents.
"A lot of those don't have the resources to either fill the prescription or even just make it to the pharmacy," she said.
Rep. Brad Banderman, R-St. Clair, asked Vega if hospitals and health care centers would be allowed to conscientiously object to offering emergency contraceptives.
Vega said she supports the bill because she doesn't think it provides hospitals with a way out of offering this care.
"Where they present or what hospital or what area shouldn't change the care that they receive," Vega said. "Every victim of sexual assault, (regardless of) social, economic status and so forth, should be offered that same service."