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Compassionate Care Public Hearing Transcript Online

Three weeks ago, CGG, Maura, and Matt W went to Hartford for a nearly ten hour public hearing in the Human Services Committee on “An Act Concerning Compassionate Care for Victims of Sexual Assault.”

Here is an excerpt from what CGG wrote about the hearing:

My favorite was Senator De Luca. He doesn’t serve on the committee, hadn’t read the bill, hadn’t listened in on any of the hearing, and was completely ignorant of what Plan B even was. Yet for some reason he felt compelled to speak. For 28 minutes we were treated to De Luca’s testimony. And I know I’m not the only who, at 10:30 PM when the hearing finally ended, appreciated that Senator DeLuca had taken up so much of everyone’s valuable time.

CT-N didn’t tape the hearing, and so I’ve been waiting patiently to read what DeLuca ranted about for nearly half an hour. Now that I’ve read it, I’m disgusted. I also realize that he speaks for a vocal minority…

…but what the hell is Al Adinolfi smoking? Emphasis added:

REP. ADINOLFI: Is it true that not every rape case becomes a criminal rape case? I heard of cases where a boyfriend who has been with you a long time. You say no, he says yes, it’s rape.

Okay. And they wind up, can they then go to a rape crisis center without pressing charges against anybody and get treatment from you, given the pills.

Has that happened? I mean rape is unwanted sex. It’s forced on you, right? Okay. I’ve probably heard of many cases where this has happened where it didn’t become a police incident.

LAURA CORDES: Just for clarification, Representative. Are you asking if all victims report the crime to the police?

REP. ADINOLFI: That’s correct

LAURA CORDES: No.

A crime is a crime, whether it’s reported or not. This man is unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable.

Anyway, the 393 page transcript of the public hearing is now available. It contains all of the testimony, including that of Representative Heinrich (who, bravely in my opinion, shared her very personal story) and Miss Connecticut Heidi Voigt.

Despicable DeLuca’s testimony and Q&A are excerpted on the flip, so you can read it for yourself.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you very much. Again, thank you very much for your testimony Denise. Our next speaker is Senator Louis DeLuca.

SEN. DELUCA: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for allowing me to testify this, which I think is a very, shall we say, discussed bill.

I’m here, for the record, I’m Senator Lou DeLuca, Senator for the 32nd District. I’m here to testify in opposition of Senate Bill 1343, AN ACT CONCERNING COMPASSIONATE CARE FOR VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT.

I haven’t heard any of the other testimony, but I did hear a little bit of the last that this could be worked out. And I also heard said that abortion is legal and this an abortion pill, and these, this is an abortion pill and it’s sold in stores.

And I would agree to all that. I would agree to what’s been said, but the law does not trump the Catholic Church concepts and beliefs and that’s what we’re talking about.

When we hear about what happened last year, the bill did not pass in the Health Committee and then there was a back-door attempt to do it through Appropriations, which then brought all this visibility to this issue and brought us to where I think we are today.

And I think that there are ways to work this out. In fact, at a recent leadership meeting with the Democrat leaders and the Governor, this discussion came about, and I suggested a compromise that might be able to work out.

I heard Representative Merrill say that there are nurses that work there, and there are rape counselors that attend these people when they come to the emergency room, they’re there to help. And they should be. This is a very traumatic situation for this person, and they need all the help they can get.

Now let’s, so my suggestion was if there is a rape counselor, that they can have the pill in their rape kit. They can, they can discuss this with them.

They’re not going to follow the nun, or somebody in the hospital is not going to follow that lady into the ladies room. There are ways to work this out that probably would be all right with everyone concerned.

But the insistence, the insistence that the hospital must dispense it is where the problem is. You’re asking somebody who is against it, their teachings are against that, to go against their teachings, and that’s where the rub is.

Nobody is saying they’re not compassionate. No one. No one. We were told last year that this pill is good for 72 hours. If it’s good for 72 hours, what is the emergency that it has to be given this minute?

I’m sorry, I didn’t hear anybody laughing when anybody else was testifying. Mr. Chairman, I’d appreciate the same courtesy that others get.

If it is a 72-hour pill, then why did they insist that they have it? Secondly, in, I have not heard of an instance where a woman was denied care or brought to a place where it could be administered if it was so chosen.

I have not heard of an example that somebody suffered because of the teachings or the beliefs of the Catholic hospital. That’s the other point.

We can work it out. Yes, I would agree with Representative Merrill. I would agree with the question that was asked by the Representative here a moment ago.

It can be worked out, but it will not be worked out where there is no compromise by either side that stand there and are unwilling to compromise.

If they demand that the hospitals must go against what they believe in, it won’t happen. If the hospitals aren’t willing to work something out, it won’t happen.

Lastly, it is now sold in drug stores. It is now over-the-counter. Why do people still insist that it has to be dispensed by someone who’s against it? We’re told that it’s a birth control pill and it’s sold in drug stores.

There are many birth control devices sold in drug stores. That doesn’t mean the Catholic hospitals dispense them or should be ordered to dispense them and any attempts to use money to punish those that stand up for their own principles, their own beliefs, in my opinion is wrong.

I’m sorry to go on so long. I didn’t come in intending to testify, but I felt as though I had to add my voice to this because I think this is an issue that will continue.

Unfortunately, last year it didn’t pass and so people are back here this year. If it doesn’t pass this year, they’ll be back here next year and the issue will go on until we reach some way of accommodation and some way of working it out.

Thank you, again, for allowing me to testify. I’d be happy to try to answer any questions. I’ll try to answer any questions.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, Senator DeLuca. Questions? Senator Kissel.

SEN. KISSEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just want to try to clarify, because you said that you had to compromise positions, and as I understand it, I would draw a distinction between birth control pills and this particular pill because I think the philosophical disagreement comes down to the point of conception.

And if someone is raped, then there’s, the individual has a chance of having conceived and there’s a debate as to when life begins and all of that.

But it strikes me from your testimony that the compromise would be that the pill could be administered in the Catholic hospital, but that it would be administered by someone that is not a paid employee of the Catholic hospital, that a rape crisis counselor.

So that the pill would be available in that facility and that, at that time, where, and it’s my understanding from my talking to folks like Dr. Lee and folks like that that are involved in forensics that when that critical evidence which will lead hopefully to the ultimate prosecution and incarceration of the rapist, that at that time is when that pill could be administered by an individual after consulting with the victim in the institution, but not by an employee of the institution. Is that correct?

SEN. DELUCA: Well, that’s a suggestion that I have made because I feel as though we’re going to continue this back and forth if everybody is standing solidly in cement and refusing to move.

That’s the reason I came up with the suggestion because a rape counselor is a third-party, not employed by the hospital, as you had indicated that I thought might be a way of working it out.

I, let me hasten to add, I didn’t discuss this with the Catholic hospitals and see if it was all right with them. It’s just something that I thought might be something that could be worked out.

SEN. KISSEL: Thank you very much, Senator DeLuca. I think that’s a very reasonable compromise. I would have to find out a little bit more as to when that rape crisis counselor intervenes with the victim.

But it would strike me that for the preservation of very valuable forensic evidence that it would be very early on, probably almost simultaneously with the consultation with the physician.

So I think that’s a valuable path to continue researching. And I am one of those individuals that stridently hope that both sides can sit down together and work out a compromise that both protects a woman’s constitutional rights, also acknowledging that we have constitutional protections in the State of Connecticut for victims of crime, but also would be mindful that these hospitals, some of which are faith-based, have things that are important to their mission as well. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. DELUCA: It is my understanding, Senator, that in most cases, I don’t know the percentage, I don’t have the actual figures, but in almost all cases that a rape counselor is in attendance, whether that person be a female officer of the police department or who is certified as a rape counselor, somebody from an organization that works with them, they are notified of this by the police and/or the hospital when the person is brought into the emergency room if they are brought in.

One thing I didn’t indicate in my testimony is, which I testified last year, is when the person is brought to a hospital in almost every one of the six Catholic hospitals in the State of Connecticut, within 10 or 15 minutes there’s another secular hospital that they could be brought to.

And the ambulance drivers and/or the police who arrive at the scene know what is best for the individual can take them to the appropriate hospital.

I can’t see somebody in that instance, and in fact, one hospital in Waterbury where I checked, very few, very few cases brought to their hospital. I don’t know if that’s the reason, but they had very few compared to the other hospital, which is five minutes away.

REP. VILLANO: Representative Schofield.

REP. SCHOFIELD: Thank you, Chairman Villano. Hi, Lou. Nice to see you in a different room.

REP. DELUCA: Didn’t I see you somewhere today?

REP. SCHOFIELD: Yeah. I appreciate your suggestion very much. I just want to share with you that I agree with a similar, with that suggestion and had exactly that conversation with a representative of the Catholic hospitals who visited with me in my office, and they categorically rejected it so I would ask that you maybe have a conversation with them and implore them to accept your suggestion.

I also want to clarify that the 72 hours is a timeframe in which you can take the pill, but the effectiveness of it diminishes with every hour that passes.

It’s not like it’s equally effective and then, boom, on the 73rd hour, it’s ineffective. It diminishes over time so timeliness is actually important and you’ll hear that from other testifiers probably later on.

SEN. DELUCA: I am aware of that, but I didn’t put the 72-hour time limit on it. It has been put on by the manufacture. It has been in testimony that by those that propose it to say it is a 72-hour pill so it’s not my limitation.

It’s the limitation, it’s the number, the hour that’s been put on by the manufacturer and those that support it have indicated that they understand it 72 hours. And as to your second point, I haven’t had that conversation with representatives.

REP. SCHOFIELD: Please do.

REP. DELUCA: I intend to. This just came up two or three weeks ago, as I said, with a leadership meeting with the Governor when we were kicking it around, and I have been thinking about that and that conversation brought it out and it has been my intention to try to talk to them to see if they’re, to see if this works.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you. Other comments? Oh, yes, Representative Bartlett.

REP. BARTLETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator DeLuca, for coming today. I just want to clarify so I understand what your position is. Is your position that the Plan B is an abortion pill or a contraceptive?

REP. DELUCA: My position, it is my understanding that it is a highly, a high dose of birth control that is, in effect prevents, prevents the pill from attaching to the uterus, so therefore, I’m not a doctor. I’m not a scientist.

I guess, in my opinion, it prevents fertilization, and therefore would probably be birth control in the, somebody have a problem with this thing?

REP. VILLANO: The bell is going to ring every three minutes to remind us that we’re, excuse me, Senator DeLuca, that we’re two hours and 20 minutes into our meeting. We have many, many speakers to go, so the bell is going to ring to remind us we’re short on time.

SEN. DELUCA: So my understanding what is probably would be a birth control under that.

REP. BARTLETT: I appreciate that because I think it’s important if we’re going to have a calm and rational discussion that we come to some levels of agreement as to, you know, what some definitions are because some of the testimony does not, you know, it says something different.

And so you know, it’s incumbent upon me, and I think everybody else, to at least know what our own definitions are and how we regard it in order to have an intelligent conversation–

SEN. DELUCA: Well, I said under my understanding of what the pill is comprised of, you could, can see, wrong word. You could understand that it’s a birth control pill.

But I also respect and understand that some people consider it an abortion pill because it prevents the completion of the conception so I understand–

REP. BARTLETT: And I understand, and I understand what you’re saying as well. I think it is a contraceptive. I agree with you and my understanding.

The other thing, I just, there’s a debate here I think about access to medical care versus faith-based beliefs. And I would say, you know, that I think that as legislators we need to prioritize what is, you know, what are our priorities, what are our values and what comes first I guess.

And is access to care, whatever that definition ends up being, does that trump an individual’s medical beliefs. So if you come up with a standard of medical protocol, does that trump someone’s religious beliefs.

SEN. DELUCA: Well, I would agree with you that access to care should be our prominent, predominate concern. And if the fact were that there was not another hospital within 15 minutes of each of the six Catholic hospitals, then that would be a major issue.

The fact that there is another hospital within 15 minutes of every Catholic hospital, number one. And number two, as I indicated, ambulance drivers and/or police know the situation. I don’t believe the access of care becomes an issue.

REP. BARTLETT: Okay, but let’s, I understand your argument, but you’re, you are establishing that access to care in some regards. You’re saying there is an out, an option out, but access to care does trump faith-based beliefs.

SEN. DELUCA: No, I didn’t say that. I said if it would become a major issue. I didn’t say it trumped beliefs.

REP. BARTLETT: I was asking for the priorities so–

SEN. DELUCA: Yeah, well, you know, I don’t think over 2,000-some-odd years of Catholicism is going to be trumped by the fact that they have to go an extra ten minutes to another hospital that says access to care is denied. That’s a different story.

We’re talking about a religion that has survived many centuries through a lot of crisis and a belief that is held and taught today to millions of people throughout the world. We’re not saying that this is a sect that just came about last year that believes something–

REP. BARTLETT: I’m not saying anything like that.

SEN. DELUCA: –and I’m not saying you are. But I’m trying to explain why I don’t believe anything trumps and should disregard a people’s belief and what they believe in. We say–

REP. BARTLETT: Let me approach it a different way then.

SEN. DELUCA: –there’s a separation of church and state except when the state wants to step on the church.

REP. BARTLETT: Let me approach it a different way then. Let’s say that the Catholic hospital is 100 miles away from another hospital. If that is the case, would you then support this legislation and say that because of access to care, that we would have to provide Plan B?

SEN. DELUCA: That’s a suppositional question that doesn’t apply to the issue at hand Representative. In the State of Connecticut we don’t have that problem.

That problem, I don’t even think about that problem, and I would not want to answer a suppositional question that doesn’t apply because it doesn’t apply. We have a hospital within 15 minutes. Access is not an issue in my mind.

REP. BARTLETT: I guess I posed it that way because if you have a victim in the emergency room who’s just been raped in their mind, perhaps, and in reality, not only in their mind, whether it be five minutes away or 15 minutes away or whatever, it really is 100 miles away to them. That’s where you and I disagree, which is fine. But I’m just stating that.

SEN. DELUCA: But the point, the point you’re saying if the person is at the one hospital and has to be transported again. I’m saying they don’t get transported to the Catholic hospital because once they get in the vehicle instead of going that direction, they go that direction.

That direction is five minutes. That direction is ten. So they go that direction rather. That’s why I say there’s no problem with access of care. That is not a problem.

If I were in a state that had a hospital 100 miles away, I might be looking for another solution. I would be thinking of some other way how we could solve the problem, but I am not.

So I am testifying and answering the problem that we have, which I don’t consider access of care a problem.

REP. BARTLETT: I respect your position, but I do think that if you listen to rape victims and what happens and state of mind and the fact of how victimized that they are, that your suggestion that they leave those premises to take Plan B elsewhere is, in my mind anyway, a further victimization of what’s already occurred and that’s all I’m saying.

SEN. DELUCA: I understand what you said, but I also said when they get into the ambulance or car–

REP. BARTLETT: You’re assuming that they can make that choice.

SEN. DELUCA: They don’t have to make that choice. I said earlier, the police or the ambulance driver who work in that city, work in that town, understand the difference between what the Catholic hospital provides and what the other–

REP. BARTLETT: What if they’re Catholic and they don’t believe in Plan B and they don’t want to tell the person. I mean, you know–

SEN. DELUCA: We’re talking, if you want to go into a lot of what ifs, we can spend the rest of the afternoon on what ifs, but I’m talking about, I’m talking about real life. In my investigation–

REP. BARTLETT: Oh my.

SEN. DELUCA: –in one city, in Waterbury that was most of the cases almost except those that were very close or somebody didn’t ask the question, they all went to the Waterbury Hospital.

REP. BARTLETT: We have to agree to disagree. Thank you, Sir.

SEN. DELUCA: Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Representative Adinolfi.

REP. ADINOLFI: Just a quickie to reiterate what Senator DeLuca said. I have in front of me the brochure from the people that manufacture the Plan B pill.

In their thing, their pill, just to reiterate what Senator DeLuca said, it says that the pill must be taken to be effective within 72 hours after sex. And that’s the first pill. And the second pill must be taken within 12 hours after that.

Now if this pill is an over-the-counter pill and a rape crisis counselor is at the hospital and the hospital, who will usually give the pill in 99.9% of the cases, and where they come out and they say, well, if you’ve already conceived or you’re pregnant, so we can’t give you the pill.

Now there’s other reasons why a rape victim goes to a hospital. They could be bruised. They could be hurt. They could be hemorrhaging.

There could be a number of reasons why they go besides the one item of possibility of being pregnant or becoming pregnant.

Now if the hospital does everything they have to do to, if they have to give stitches or whatever might happen to make the patient stable, there’s no reason in the world when they say, okay, 99%.

We’ll give the pill, but we feel in this case we can’t give the pill, as that patient walks out the door, why the sexual assault victim’s advocate can’t say, when you get out the door I’ve got half a dozen in my pocket. We’ll go over here.

I mean, what’s the big deal? I just don’t [Gap in testimony. Changing from Tape 2A to Tape 2B.]

–the Catholic hospitals do come under the auspices of the Archdiocese. They’re not independent, and I think that’s something that we have to consider.

There are ways around it to accomplish the end result. We’re trying to stand on principles here. I think sometimes we have to give a little, and the Catholic hospitals are willing to give a lot.

But I see no reason why if the pill is available over-the-counter and the rape victim’s advocate has the pill with them, and in the rare, rare case I don’t know of any yet, where the Catholic hospital has refused the pill, that it can’t be given on the way out the door.

And everybody’s happy, and the patient’s taken care of if it works. And then it only works 89% of the time when given in the first 72 hours.

I just, and the reason I’m saying that, unfortunately, I have had the opportunity to be in the emergency room a number of times over the last six months and I’ve never left, never been given a medication while I was in the hospital where I needed it.

I left with a pair of crutches and two prescriptions, but I wasn’t given the medication while I was in the hospital. And let me tell you, I was very bad.

And I just don’t understand, I mean I understand the different situations, but here you have a situation where you don’t even need a prescription for the pill. I needed it and had to wait until the next day. Thank you.

REP. VILLANO: Thank you, Senator DeLuca.

SEN. DELUCA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.