Help for Victims of Sexual Assault - New York Times

Help for Victims of Sexual Assault - New York Times: "Looking to cut through the inertia and ideology, a bipartisan group of lawmakers last week introduced legislation that would mandate that all hospitals receiving federal funds offer rape victims emergency contraception as a matter of basic care. The measure, sponsored by Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jon Corzine, both Democrats, and Olympia Snowe, a Republican, also includes provisions to ensure that women receive the necessary treatment for sexually transmitted diseases."

Well, I talked about the veto on the state level of a bill that would require all hospitals that treat rape victims to inform their patients of emergency contraception. Thankfully, on the federal level there is more action on this urgent issue. Limited to hospitals receiving federal funding (because otherwise it would be unconstitutional) this bipartisan moderate bill should pass in order to provide better health service to those who have just been so brutally victimized. However, I seriously doubt its ability to pass in the House and certainly it wouldn't have veto-proof majorities so Bush would seem the type to veto it as well. Still...Democrats benefit from continuing to push reasonable legislation that the majority of Americans (or Coloradans) support and making the Republicans who aren't moderates to show themselves as radical by voting no or vetoing. On the heels of the stem cell bill this is the type of legislative agenda that the Democrats need heading into the vital 2006 mid-term elections.