Rape Victim Can Sue After Being Arrested, Denied Contraception

We’ve written plenty about the many barriers that can make emergency contraception hard to get, but this is a particularly horrifying example (and very rare, we hope).

The woman, who is listed as “R.W.” in court documents to protect her anonymity, was allegedly raped in January of 2007. After being examined at Tampa’s Rape Crisis Center, she was given emergency contraception. She took one pill immediately, and planned to take the other in twelve hours as she’d been directed to.

Unfortunately, R.W. had an outstanding arrest warrant for failure to repay restitution and failure to appear in court. Despite allegedly having been raped, she was booked into Hillsborough County Jail on the outstanding warrants, and staff there confiscated her pill.

According to R.W.’s lawsuit, guard Michele Spinelli refused to allow the woman to take the second pill, because “it was against [Spinelli’s] religious beliefs.”

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