Dear John,
Greetings from FRC Action!
Earlier this week we asked you to contact Congress to ask them not to throw women under the bus in the name of funding programs for women who have suffered abuse.
Unfortunately, the House and Senate quickly passed the “Omnibus” (a major spending bill designed to keep government open) with this flawed version of the Violence Against Women Act, inserting gender ideology in funding for women’s programs and subjecting victims of violence and abuse to requirements to share private spaces with biological males.
Please tell your elected officials what you think of their vote for this flawed legislation.
Background
Congress passed VAWA in 1994 to improve the criminal justice response to domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking and increase the availability of victims’ services. These are admirable aims, but unfortunately, when VAWA was last reauthorized in 2013, language was added that prevented it from achieving these important goals. The current reauthorization continues and exacerbates these problems by mandating harmful gender identity ideology, maintaining Planned Parenthood’s ability to obtain VAWA grants, cordoning off certain grant funds to be used for only limited purposes and limited pools of victims, and now possibly opening the door to fund abortion more directly. In short, this bill will harm the very women VAWA should be protecting.
Women who have been victims of rape, sexual assault, sexual molestation, sex trafficking, and the worst imaginable abuses deserve a safe place to heal emotionally and physically. They should not be forced to share private spaces with biological men, sleep next to biological men, or disrobe in front of biological men. Requiring this of women who were abused by biological men compounds their trauma.
These women deserve as much access to victims’ services as possible. However, the mandates contained in this reauthorization will surely lead to some service facilities closing, other facilities either ending or forgoing partnership with the government, and lawsuits against facilities. All these outcomes will limit facilities’ ability to help victims of abuse. This bill also creates certain grants that can only be used to help certain victims and perpetuates similar grants that already existed. Funds should instead be made available to serve the maximum number of women, without regard to federally-mandated special categories.
Furthermore, an appropriate mandate for VAWA would certainly include preventing its grantees from perpetuating or covering up the victimization of those they serve. Yet, Planned Parenthood is allowed to be a VAWA grantee despite its coverup of sexual abuse and sex trafficking. They have received over $3 million in VAWA grants since 2010!
This VAWA reauthorization will further traumatize and reduce resources for battered women. It is deeply unjust to some of our most vulnerable neighbors. Please congratulate or rebuke your elected officials for their vote on this flawed reauthorization of VAWA, and demand better protections for victimized women.
Sincerely,
Your Friends at FRC Action
