Testimony of
Juley Fulcher, Esq.
Public Policy Director
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
before the
Subcommittee on the Constitution
of the House Committee on the Judiciary
on H.R. 1997, the “Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2003”
Good afternoon Mr. Chairman and Members of the
Subcommittee. My name is Juley Fulcher
and I am the Public Policy Director of the National Coalition Against Domestic
Violence (NCADV). On behalf of the
Coalition, I thank you for the opportunity to address the concerns of battered
women who experience violence during their pregnancies. The National Coalition Against Domestic
Violence is a nationwide network of approximately 2,000 domestic violence
shelters, programs and individual members working on behalf of battered women
and their children. My role here today
is to advocate for increased safety for battered women, which in turn will lead
to healthier pregnancies and births. Unfortunately,
the “Unborn Victims of Violence Act” (H.R. 1997) does NOT provide the
protection that battered women need to obtain safety.
Historically, one of the major obstacles to eradicating
domestic violence from the lives of women has been the unwillingness of the
legal system to treat domestic violence as a serious crime. The hard work of dedicated domestic
violence advocates on the front lines has slowly brought about a change in the way
we treat the crime of domestic violence.
States began toughening laws on domestic violence and enforcing existing
laws in the late 1980s. In 1994[1]
and 2000[2],
Congress gave an important boost to this trend by passing the Violence Against
Women Act and committing to a federal investment in protecting battered women
and their children. As a result, we have seen increased criminal prosecutions
of domestic violence nationwide. It is
important that we continue this trend and recognize domestic violence threats,
assaults and murders as the serious crimes that they are.
One-third of all female murder victims are
killed by an intimate partner.[3]
According to a summary of recent studies, 4% to 8% of all
pregnant women in this country are battered by the men in their lives[4]
with the highest rates of violence being experienced by pregnant adolescents.[5] Studies now indicate that homicide is the
number one killer of pregnant women.[6] Women who experience abuse are more likely to
delay prenatal care[7]
and are at a substantially increased risk of domestic violence.[8]
Yet physicians do not usually screen for signs of domestic violence even though
instances are more common than routinely screened for gestational diabetes or
preeclampsia.[9] As an attorney representing victims of domestic violence, I
have seen the effects of this violence first hand. Several years ago, a client of mine lost a
pregnancy due to domestic violence.
There was a history of domestic violence in her case and she had sought
assistance several times. While she was
8 months pregnant, her batterer lifted her up in his arms and held her body
horizontal to the ground. He then
slammed her body to the floor causing her to miscarry. No matter how many stories like this I hear,
it never ceases to sicken me. I should note that in this case and others I have worked
on, it was clear by the batterer’s words and actions that his intent was to
cause physical and emotional injury to the woman and establish undeniably his
power to control her. We, as a society, are right to want to address this
problem and protect women from such a fate.
However, our response to the problem should be one that truly protects
the pregnant woman by early intervention and prevention and not a reaction to a
specific set of circumstances after the fact, however horrible and sad.
The “Unborn Victims of Violence Act” is not designed to
protect women and does not help victims of domestic violence. The goal of the Act is to create a new cause
of action on behalf of the unborn and further a specific political agenda. The result is that the crime committed
against a pregnant woman is no longer about the woman victimized by violence. Instead the focus often will be shifted to
the impact of that crime on the unborn embryo or fetus, once again diverting
the attention of the legal system away from domestic violence or other forms of
violence against women.
Moreover, passage of the “Unborn Victims of Violence Act”
would set a dangerous precedent, which could easily lead to statutory changes
that could hurt battered women. This
bill would, for the first time, federally recognize that the unborn embryo or
fetus could be the victim of a crime. It
would not be a large intellectual leap to expand the notion of the unborn fetus
as a victim in other realms. In fact,
some states have already made that leap and in those states women have been
prosecuted and convicted for acts that infringe on state recognized legal
rights of a fetus. While the “Unborn
Victims of Violence Act” specifically exempts the mother from prosecution for
her own actions with respect to the fetus, it is easy to imagine subsequent
legislation that would hold her responsible for injury to the fetus, even for
the violence perpetrated on her by her batterer under a “failure to protect”
theory. Moreover, a battered woman can
be intimidated or pressured by her batterer not to reveal the cause of her
miscarriage and, if she is financially or emotionally reliant on her batterer,
she may be less likely to seek appropriate medical assistance if doing so could
result in the prosecution of her batterer for an offense as serious as
murder. The long-term public health
implications of such a policy would be devastating for victims of domestic
violence and all women.
The harmful potential of this bill is, unfortunately,
balanced by little or no additional protections for battered women and other
women victimized by violence. The vast
majority of domestic violence threats, assaults and murders -- like other
crimes of violence -- are prosecuted by the state. While there are important federal laws to
prosecute interstate domestic violence,[10]
interstate stalking[11]
and interstate violation of a protection order,[12]
these are stop-gap statutes which are appropriately applied in a very small
number of cases relative to the incidence of domestic violence nationwide. In fact, the federal domestic violence
criminal statutes have been called into play only 130 times between 1994 and
2000.[13]
As the “Unborn Victims of Violence Act” would only apply in federal cases, the
change in the law would do little, if anything, to address the crime of
domestic violence in our country or other assaults on pregnant women.
Federal programming already exists that positively impacts the
lives of hundreds of thousands of battered women and their children. Since the original Violence Against Women Act
was passed in 1994, we have seen a 49% decrease in intimate partner violence.[14]
Unfortunately, available services still do not come close to meeting the needs
of victims. In a recent NCADV survey, as
many as two-thirds of the victims seeking assistance at domestic violence
shelters and programs were turned away last year due to lack of space. Since the passage of the Violence Against
Women Act of 2000, the fiscal year 2003 appropriations for Violence Against
Women Act programming fell more than 100 million dollars short of the
authorized amounts. Last year, changes in the way Victims of Crime Act
(VOCA) funds were distributed resulted in the loss of more than $30 million to
programs serving victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse and
other crimes. In Indiana, 1,185 women and children were turned away this year
due to the lack of funding. Michigan has been forced to make cuts of 5% to 10%
in direct assistance to victims because of the reduction in VOCA funding. Ohio
programs have lost over $2 million dollars in funding and California is
struggling to keep its 120 domestic violence programs open. Moreover, funding for programs critical to the sustained
safety of battered women such as transitional housing received no funding at
all. Women and their unborn children can be
helped substantially more by other programs. The cost of intimate
partner violence exceeds $5.8 billion dollars in this country each year, not
including the cost of the criminal justice process,[15]
yet entities that currently work on the front lines to end domestic violence
are experiencing large cuts in funding. If the United
States Congress is serious about protecting women from domestic violence,
whether they are pregnant or not, you must fully fund these programs that have
already made so much of a difference in the lives of victims nationwide.
I hope you agree with me that the crime of domestic
violence is a horrendous one, not only in terms of the physical impact of the
violence, but also in terms of its emotional, psychological, social and
economic toll upon its victims.
Certainly, there can be no doubt that a pregnancy lost due to domestic
violence greatly increases that toll on a battered woman. We at the National Coalition Against Domestic
Violence wish to fully recognize and respond to that loss. However, the more appropriate means of
dealing with this problem with respect to battered women is to provide
comprehensive healthcare, safety planning and domestic violence advocacy for
victims. This solution would maintain
the focus of any criminal prosecution on the intended victim of violence -- the
battered woman -- and make an important affirmative step toward providing
safety for her. If Congress wishes to
protect the pregnancy, the way to do that is by protecting the woman.