By Marie McCullough
Knight Ridder Newspapers
PHILADELPHIA The Justice Department has issued its first-ever medical guidelines for treating sexual-assault victims without mention of emergency contraception, the standard precaution against pregnancy after rape.
Omission of the so-called morning-after pill has frustrated and angered victims' advocates and medical professionals.
Washington and four other states California, Illinois, New Mexico and New York have laws requiring hospitals to provide the contraception, or at least tell victims how to obtain the pills.
Gail Burns-Smith, one of several dozen experts who vetted the protocol during its three-year development by Justice's Office on Violence Against Women, said emergency contraception was included in an early draft, and she does not know of anyone who opposed it.
"But in the climate in which we are currently operating, politically it's a hot potato," said Burns-Smith, retired director of Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services.
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