The girl confesses to Carol that she went home from a party with a male acquaintance, blacked out, and woke up with her tights disheveled. The young woman believes she is a victim of acquaintance rape. If a woman is raped, she should immediately go to the emergency room where health care workers can collect forensic evidence, and check for injuries and sexually transmitted diseases. If a woman who is raped had no contraceptive protection, she should ask about emergency contraception, which can help prevent pregnancy. Emergency contraception can also be effective if a woman has sex and no birth control is used, a condom breaks, she has forgotten to take two or more of her birth control pills, her diaphragm slips out of place, or she is more than two weeks late for a contraceptive injection.
Emergency contraceptives are methods that can be used after unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy.
ECPs involve taking a specific amount of birth control pills within 72 hours of unprotected sex, and a second dose 12 hours later. ECPs can be taken right away after unprotected sex, or as much as three days later. ECPs require a prescription. The short, strong burst of hormones in ECPs disrupts the regular hormone patterns that women have which are essential for pregnancy. These disruptions are temporary, lasting only a day or two.