In Survivor Injustice (North Atlantic, Aug.), Jezebel staff writer Cheung argues that many government policies align with the interests of domestic abusers and others who commit intimate violence against women.
What is the most direct connection you see between government and domestic abusers?
What is the difference between an abusive partner who tampers with your birth control, impregnates you against your will, and forces you to carry a pregnancy, and a state that does the same thing? I think that with abortion bans and the criminalization of pregnancy, we see the state act as an abuser.
Could you talk about how this is compounded by digital surveillance?
A really alarming trend over the last decade has been the way that digital histories are used to investigate and punish pregnant people. To access these histories, law enforcement weaponizes laws that are not meant to punish pregnant people. For example, last summer, in Nebraska, a teenager was prosecuted for taking abortion pills. Someone had reported her—most people who come to the attention of law enforcement have been reported by someone they know. Law enforcement put out a warrant to Meta, and the warrant did not say the word abortion—I believe it made a reference to “manslaughter” or “fetal homicide.” So, without a lot of consideration, Meta handed over those texts of hers. Meta later said that they wouldn’t help with the criminalization of abortion, but I think technology companies are demonstrating that they are not equipped to handle these nuances.
You write about the history of the Violence Against Women Act, a 1994 law intended to protect women from violent gender-based crimes. How do it and other law enforcement efforts end up working against women?
The VAWA first emerged in 1994 after decades of important anti-rape organizing and consciousness-raising, but in the “tough on crime” era, a lot of the VAWA’s funding was allocated to law enforcement—even though police officers are often perpetrators of gender-based violence themselves. There is a wealth of statistics about that. And there are statistics showing that 90% of women in prisons are survivors of prior sexual violence, and that it is one of the most costly crimes to survive, even more so than home burglary, because of medical bills and the impact on one’s ability to continue doing their job. Many women pay thousands out of pocket to go to the emergency room after an assault. These costs contribute to survivors of sexual violence committing crimes. Then, in prisons, gender-based violence is rampant. We talk about prisons or the legal system as a way to help prevent sexual violence, but our criminal system is only equipped to reproduce sexual violence.
