STAND

STAND. COM. REP. 929

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2003

RE: S.B. No. 658

S.D. 1

H.D. 1

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 658, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTIVES FOR SEX ASSAULT SURVIVORS IN EMERGENCY ROOMS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to require nonreligious hospitals to provide sexual assault survivors information and access to emergency contraception.

The First Unitarian Church, American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, Sex Abuse Treatment Center, and Community Alliance on Prisons testified in support of this measure. The Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women and Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies supported the intent of this measure. Planned Parenthood of Hawaii supported this measure with amendments.

Hawaii Right to Life, American Center for Law & Justice, Pro-Family Hawaii, and many concerned individuals opposed this measure. The Roman Catholic Conference, St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii, and a concerned individual provided comments.

Your Committee finds that individuals do not always have easy access to emergency contraceptives. Emergency contraceptives must be taken within 72 hours of sexual intercourse to be most effective. Your Committee is especially concerned that there are a large number of unreported sexual assaults. Individuals who report sexual assaults are generally given information about emergency contraception, but it is estimated that for every reported sexual assault, there are many more that remain unreported.

Statistics estimate that 300,000 women are sexually assaulted each year in the United States, and approximately 25,000 of those women become pregnant as a result. Approximately 22,000 of those pregnancies could be prevented if all sexually assaulted women used emergency contraceptives.

Your Committee has amended this bill by:

(1) Requiring hospitals that provide emergency contraception to ask sexual assault survivors if they are under the age of 16 and the name of the assailant, while making it clear that an answer is optional;

(2) Requiring hospitals who obtain the assailant's name to report it to the police, but not reporting the sexual assault survivor's name;

(3) Reducing to $1,000, the administrative fine on hospitals that do not comply with the requirements relating to providing information or access to emergency contraception;

(4) Removing the penalty for two violations of noncompliance;

(5) Imposing a $1,000 fine on religious hospitals that do not provide sexual assault survivors information and a list of facilities in the vicinity that provide emergency contraceptives; and

(6) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for purposes of clarity and style.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 658, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 658, S.D. 1, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Health,

		____________________________ DENNIS A. ARAKAKI, Chair