In keeping with the post on India:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/catholic-church-counters-claim-its-hospitals-turned-rape-victim-away-a-878215.html

Another set of religious/cultural taboos have seen a rape victim harmed so as not to offend said taboos. The taboos in question are these:

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.

In the light of statements made in the United States by public figures recently, as well as in discussion threads here I think it's worth pointing out even in rather secular Germany that it's still possible to see things like this happen. Democracy does not ensure people against the effects of their own stupidity, there is no way to do that. Humans as a whole are an irrational and stupid species more often than not. This cannot be changed. We are also cruel and brutal to each other, as the very phenomenon of rape itself attests to. In this case it was being refused hospital service instead of murder or suicide, so it's not directly equivalent in terms of the deed itself, more in terms of the underlying concept behind it.

I find this behavior utterly inexcusable on the hospital, and to be a sign of cowardice on the part of its board of ethics. But I will not be surprised if people invariably defend the right of religious bodies in the West to do things like this even as they damn the more violent manifestations of the same mentality in the poorer parts of the world.

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Given this is the Catholic clergy here.......