You Want Outrage?

Outrageous stories generate traffic on website; traffic pleases people who own and operate websites. So here's some outrage for you, via this morning' FARK. (Link goes to discussion of this article.)

Yesterday, Tampa held its annual "Gasparilla" parade; an annual festival like Mardi Gras or Carnival. A 21-year-old woman claims that she was grabbed off the crowded street, pulled into an alley, and violently raped. Upon responding to the woman's complaint, an outstanding juvenile warrant was found, and the woman was arrested on it. After being booked, she requested a medical examination (she had just been raped, after all). The examining nurse prescribed emergency contraception, and sent her on her way to custody. The jail nurse refused to dispense the contraception on religious grounds, as permitted by Florida's "Shield Law."

Now, the woman is no angel -- the warrant was to pay about $4,500 restitution for her involvement in an auto burglary. But even if she were a gang-banger, that's certainly no reason to apparently dismiss her claims of being the victim of a serious, violent crime. Nor is it any reason to force her to conceive the child of her rapist. So there may well be something more to the story than is reported here. But I can't imagine how it would be anything but ugly.