In the Bible, there’s a famous passage where Jesus saves a woman from being stoned to death as a punishment for committing adultery. He tells people in the group trying to kill her that they should only throw a stone if they are personally free of sin, and the crowd disperses.
A recent profile of North Carolina Republican congressional candidate Bo Hines evokes the Biblical scene of punishment and shame, minus the stones.
In a report from Bryan Anderson of WRAL, Hines said he wants victims of rape and incest seeking abortion to go through “a community-level review process outside the jurisdiction of the federal government.”
At best, Hines and the rest of the GOP are trying to spin their strict anti-abortion beliefs as something more moderate, even if something like a community review process would criminalize those seeking abortion, even for people deemed “more worthy” of the procedure.
At worst, putting a rape survivor on stage in front of peers who will pick apart their “believability” sounds like a 21st century witch trial or an anecdote from the town in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson.
Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz offered a similar approach last month, describing abortion as a decision between “women, doctors, [and] local political leaders.” In trying to appeal to moderates, hardline Republicans like Hines and Oz are suggesting something that in some cases may be worse than an absolute ban. They want people whose bodies have been violated and attacked to then turn around and be violated and attacked again by rehashing their attack. Then they still might be denied the procedure.
In fact, we’ve already seen how this plays out. This year, actor Johnny Depp sued his ex-wife Amber Heard for defamation when she attached her name to an op-ed about surviving sexual violence. Depp won the trial, despite losing a similar trial in England. Heard was forced to relive her trauma in front of a jury and the entire Internet (the trial was livestreamed). For weeks, sound bites and video clips of her were analyzed by zealous social media users trying to prove that she was guilty. She was ridiculed and mocked; even companies joined the dogpile, including an adult store that created a toy based on her testimony describing sexual assault.
That is what Hines apparently wants victims of sexual violence to endure. This is what Oz is suggesting with his quip that local politicians should be included in the abortion conversation. Even if a community review is private, the narrative is out of the victims’ hands. They will be judged for something they had no say in happening, and every bit of their lives could be used in the decision. If you have multiple partners, or struggle to remember your story, that’s just another point against you.
A culture that notoriously abuses women and gender nonconforming people thrust into the public eye is not going to give survivors a fair shake. It is looking to put victims of a crime on trial instead of focusing on repercussions for the abuser.
This is already a fear for survivors. The CDC reports that only 32% of sexual assaults are reported to law enforcement. The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network estimates that less than 1% of sexual assaults actually result in felony charges. Survivors of sexual assualt who have gone to trial often say that the actual process of rehashing their assault is another violation of their personhood.
“As an OBGYN, it’s hard to comprehend how Bo Hines could think that a community-level review process is an acceptable way to determine whether or not victims of rape are allowed to access health care,” Dr. Alan Rosenbaum, said in a joint press release with Hines’s Democratic opponent, Wiley Nickel.
Surely, Hines knows that it isn’t acceptable. If he doesn’t, we should be concerned about more than just his opinions on reproductive rights.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Sara Pequeño is a Raleigh-based opinion writer for McClatchy’s North Carolina Opinion Team and member of the Editorial Board.
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