In the 19th and early 20th century, many moralists thought it was condoning adultery by seeking cures for venereal diseases. Doctors involved with the search for cures were condemned as immoral.

Of course, it was the search for that "magic bullet" that led to the development of antibiotics, which are used to treat a range of life-threatening diseases.

I'm sure there's a special place in Purgatory for those self-righteous assholes.

The primary source is refuting the claims that RH Reality Check made on her behalf! Jesus!

Here are the relevant paragraphs from her blog post:

"I'm having an interesting internet experience at the moment. In my essay that I read at the Ottawa celebrations, I mentioned that two of my friends in New Brunswick were refused pap tests by their doctors. It was an anecdotal example that was part of a larger point I was making about limits on access to reproductive health care in the province. Anyway, last week I received an email from Pamela Pizarro, who writes for RH Reality Check. She wanted to know more about my friends' experiences. Well, I couldn't really tell her much, since it was secondhand information to begin with, and it really wasn't a big focus in my essay. Anyway, I told her what I could. Well, she ran with it, and this is the result.

[...]

Well imagine my surprise when yesterday I saw this posted at Feministing (internet love of my life). I left a comment to say I didn't think it was as big a deal as the author of the piece was implying, but I don't think anyone paid attention. I'm a little worried that this concern over "NB doctors refusing to give pap tests" is completely unfounded, or at least founded on an offhand remark I made in my essay. I guess when people pick up something shocking like this, they run with it, and it's easy to get outraged over something that doesn't really exist."

This Broadsheet post is *exactly* the sort of thing she feared would happen.

Stop rumor-mongering and PAY ATTENTION!

heard of any woman being refused Pap tests. If anything, the opposite is true. One of the first things doctors look at on your chart is the date of your last Pap test and if you're due for one, the doctor usually brings it up.

I think it's almost equally bad that I am required to get a pap smear in order to obtain a birth control prescription. As far as I'm concerned birth control should be available to anyone regardless of whether they submit to their yearly exam.

Although if this is untrue as some other posters have said shame on Broadsheet once again for poor sourcing.

Now can we have the names of those awful doctors? I'd love to find a doctor who would prescribe birth control pills without a pap smear. I used to buy them online, but that source has now switched to only prescribing morning-after pills.

This is totally bizarre on quite a few different levels. Other posters have picked up on the extremely anecdotal source of the story, and the primary source's jaw-drop on the traction it has gained.

But I do have a couple of questions: 1) could somebody please give a rational account of what on earth religious or ethical positions are served by refusing to give a particular test? A life saving one at that? It makes no sense at all.

2) Why on earth has this silly story gotten so much attention? A couple of docs in the Canadian hinterland may be behaving stupidly, and its an internet feminist meme? What is the real issue that this is symbolic for? I really don't understand. Seriously.

For the love of [insert deity or name of spiritual leader or movement here], please, please don't ever do this sort of thing again. I live in Canada and thought this was simply too bizarre to be real (did you mean to type, like, "Kentucky", maybe, I wondered?), and it would seem that it pretty much is. I love Broadsheet, even when I don't agree with the attitudes or opinions expressed in it, and expect the contributors thereto to subject their work to the same sort of fact-checking I assume they would impose on any other journalistic work they do.

Americans have a poor enough understanding of Canada's . . . oh, hell, Canada's anything--health care, politics, weather, social mores, beer. Please don't make the problem even one iota worse.

Your life must be so hard, being misunderstood. Those poor Canadians.

I take full responsibility for the error. Thanks.

Poor Canadians? I note this morning that the Loonie is worth $1.03 American pesos. And we don't owe about half our country to the Chinese either.

But massive 'murkin ignorance about their neighbors might not be entirely a bad thing, annoying though it can be. As Pierre Trudeau once said, it is a little like being a mouse in bed with an elephant: you hope that the elephant is friendly, but not TOO friendly.

I've often thought that it would probably be better if we didn't have so much oil to lubricate the relationship. Well, at least our tar-sands oil has lots of Grit in it (sorry, inside Canadian joke there).

Please feel free to bash me as another American ignorant of Canadian healthcare policy, this seems more like a stunt my HMO would try to pull:

Paps test for cervical dysplasia. By far the most common cause of dysplasia is HPV, which is sexually transmitted. If a woman is determined to be at very low risk, i.e. she is not sexually active, then the root cause of cervical dysplasia is virtually non-existent, and thus the exam and the lab -- and subsequent associated costs -- would be unnecessary.

I suppose one could try and extrapolate a "conscience clause" rationale by saying that unmarried women shouldn't be having sex at all, therefore they don't need Paps, but then again married women should be in monogamous relationships with monogamous men so *they* wouldn't need Paps either.

I don't know. It all seems a little weird to me.