The GOP-led House’s version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) would not only strip away Senate-passed protections for undocumented, LGBT, and Native American victims, it also contains a dangerous provision that violates an undocumented victim’s confidentiality by allowing immigration officials to speak with, and ask for evidence from, his or her abuser…. Undocumented victims already fear calling the police because they risk deportation in doing so. This portion of the bill adds on another level of fear by alerting their abusers that they’ve sought help….alerting an abuser to a victim’s complaint adds yet another level of emotional abuse on top of the physical abuse that the victim already faces.
One of the things I’ve struggled to understand during the 2012 campaign cycle is why Republicans have decided that it’s in their best interest to wage a legislative war against women. Never mind that women represent something like 52% of the electorate. I get the idea of trying to play to their Conservative base, but going about it in a manner that can only be interpreted as waging war on women defies rational explanation…never mind common sense.
Few things exhibit the GOP’s circular firing squad mentality than the needless controversy over renewing the Violence Against Women Act(VAWA). That the idea of violence against women is anything but uniformly anathema seems just plain wrong. Republicans have been pushing back against renewing VAWA in its current form, and the version put forward by Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL) seems to be predicated upon the idea that some women are more deserving of being protected from abuse. To say that a woman is less deserving of protection because of her immigration status, her ethnicity, or her sexuality is as wrong as it is disturbing. When did we begin to apply human rights selectively?
Not only does Adams’ bill significantly reduce VAWA protection of certain classes of women, a new provision would in some cases allow government officials to notify abusers that their victim has gone public and blown the whistle on their abuse. That a female legislator could write a bill so thoroughly devoid of compassion for certain classes of abused woman is as astonishing as it is inhuman.
Even if one were to completely set aside partisanship (or basic human decency), what do Republicans have to gain by alienating half the electorate? I ask because I have NO idea what the upside is for them. It’s getting to the point where “Female Republican” is as much an exercise in working against your own best interest as much as “Gay Republican.”
I can’t help but think that Republicans are about to find out what karma is….
