Domestic Violence Calls About 'Reproductive Coercion' Doubled After the Overturn of Roe

(FUCK THE GODDAMNED WOMAN-HATING, CHRISTOFASCIST GESTATIONAL SLAVERS AND ALL THEIR ENABLERS)


Domestic Violence Calls About ‘Reproductive Coercion’ Doubled After the Overturn of Roe
10/20/2023 by Jennifer Gerson, The 19th
Those experiencing domestic violence are facing a reality where an inability to receive reproductive care is also further endangering their lives, new data shows.


Abortion rights activists march to the U.S. Supreme Court on June 24, 2023, to mark the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. (Anna Rose Layden / Getty Images)

This story was originally published by The 19th.

Reports of abuse involving reproductive coercion—actions that prevent someone from making crucial decisions about their body and reproductive health—nearly doubled in the yearlong period after Roe v. Wade was overturned, according to new data from the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH). “If you cannot make these decisions, it could mean unfortunately that you have to stay in an abusive situation longer than you want to,” Marium Durrani, the vice president of public policy at the NDVH, told The 19th. “It could impact your escape, it could mean that potentially you’re forced to have a child with someone you don’t want to have a child with.”

Durrani explained that reproductive coercion can take the form of any situation in which one partner is exerting power over another in a way that impacts their reproductive health: forcing someone to engage in sexual activity, refusing to use contraception, restricting a partner from seeing a healthcare provider, telling a partner they are not allowed to receive abortion care. “A lot more people are now citing some sort of reproductive issue as part of their experience [with domestic abuse],” Durrani said. “Dobbs is having a huge impact on not only all individuals around the country, but survivors in particular.”


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The Supreme Court is hearing a case next month that may further change the risk factors that pregnant people in abusive relationships face: United States v. Rahimi is about whether or not the federal law barring individuals who have a standing domestic violence restraining order against them from possessing guns is constitutional. Experts point to the links between pregnancy, abuse and death by gun violence, as well as the rise in calls to the hotline in the year after the Dobbs decision, as critical context about the stakes in the Rahimi case.

Talukder said that now that the Supreme Court is about to decide whether those who are under domestic violence restraining orders—which require a preponderance of evidence to be granted by a judge in a civil court—have the right to own firearms, it is impossible to isolate what is currently at play with Rahimi with what the Court already decided in Dobbs. “The bigger issue now is why the Supreme Court decides who gets to have rights in this country.” With the documented spike in calls already to the NDVH citing reproductive coercion post-Dobbs, Durrani emphasized that it is critical to remember that Dobbs and Rahimi both exist in a landscape where Supreme Court rulings stand to impact “the ecosystem of what survivors have available to them, the world that they live in to try to get safe. When you take away any of those options, then you put survivors in much more dangerous situations.”

https://msmagazine.com/2023/10/20/domestic-violence-reproductive-coercion-doubled-roe-dobbs/