Domestic Violence and Healthcare Reform: Will the Abused Get the Help They Need?

By InsightAnalytical-GRL

Are you surprised?  I would imagine that New Mexico is no different from many other places here in the U.S.

ABQJOURNAL NEWS/STATE: Domestic Violence Increases in N.M.

Authorities say domestic violence is on the rise in New Mexico, and the recession is likely to blame.

Prosecutors and police can only speculate about the cause of the uptick, but District Attorney spokesman Pat Davis said it’s easy to draw a line between the recession and the violence.

“There’s something new going on, and it certainly seems to correlate with the economy,” Davis said. “Our numbers sure show it.”

Fourteen percent more felony domestic violence cases were referred to the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same time last year. Felony cases usually involve weapons or serious injury.

Davis said it seems likely that people feeling the economic pinch are buying alcohol and drinking at home instead of paying more for drinks at bars. Then after drinking at home, they are venting their financial troubles on family members.

The DA’s Office usually sees an increase in domestic violence from year to year, which Davis said they attribute to population growth and more victim awareness about how to report incidents. This year, however, the increase is much sharper than normal.

MORE

And as the health care debate begins, here’s an interesting bit of information about the specific health needs of women who are victims.

According to MedlinePlus from the National Institutes of Health:

Health-Care Costs Go Up, and Stay Up, for Abused Women

Women who are physically or psychologically abused by their partners spend more each year on health care, even years after the abuse stops, a new report says.

The long-term study of more than 3,300 women in the Pacific Northwest revealed that women in ongoing abusive relationships spent about 42 percent more a year on physical and mental health-care services than did women not in abusive relationships.

Even those who had not been subjected to abuse in at least five years spent 19 percent a year more for health care than those who had never suffered abuse from an intimate partner, according to findings by a team from Ohio State University, the Group Health Cooperative, and the University of Washington in Seattle.

“Along with all the physical and emotional pain it causes, domestic violence also comes with a substantial financial price,” Amy Bonomi, an associate professor of human development and family science at Ohio State and a co-author of the study, said in a news release from the university.

SNIP

The study, which included data from 1992 to 2002, found that physically and psychologically abused women sought help from mental health services at least twice as often as women who were not abused, Bonomi said.

“This lends support to the idea that mental health providers should always ask women about their abuse history when they first come in for treatment,” she said.

I’m sure that in 2009 the price being paid is even greater…both physically and monetarily. I’m wondering how the types of care that are involved will be addressed very well in any “reform.”  As it stands now, mental health costs are often paid at a LOWER rate than treatment for “physical” conditions.

About a year and a half ago, a National Census of Domestic Violence Services was conducted over a 24-hour period. Nearly 70% of identified domestic violence programs participated.  Take a look at the National Summary and you’ll see how large the unmet need is…

***

Here are a couple sites which have rundowns on the on the scope of domestic violence here in the U.S.

http://www.drkathiemathis.com/domestic-violence.html

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art45047.asp

Taking Our Power, Taking Our Lives: Women Under Threat (Updated 1X)

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

The news about  Bettyjean’s tragedy, the assaults on her daughters Denise and Louisa at the hands of a violent man and a useless legal system, has made me reflect on some of the threats I’ve received and about how many other women have gone through similar experiences.  Most of my life, I never really felt threatened, until the last few years.   The threats I’ve had directed at me recently have been unprovoked anger and verbal that has taken me totally by surprise, because the circumstances would not normally trigger such violent responses. They were disturbing when they occurred and even more disturbing as I recall them tonight.

I’m just about the only one around here who walks my dogs, and being from the East and used to pooper scooper laws, I always pick up.  In these parts, there is no such law and sometimes a stray or an inconsiderate dog-walker will allow their dog to leave a mess on someone’s property.

A few years ago I peeked out of my front door window to see a neighbor opening my front gate, a man whom I had seen a few times but knew little about, except that he was an ex-Marine and was now working in some sort of dispatch job for the city.  I opened the door to a barrage of verbal abuse and accusations about how my dog had left a poop on his property. Totally taken aback, I informed this guy that “I picked up.” This didn’t stop him one bit–he called me a “bitch” and told me I shouldn’t walk on “his street.”  Of course, this made me angry…very angry. I stepped outdoors and stood nose-t0-nose with this ranting man. I went into Marine-mode.

“Listen, SIR, you have no right to accuse me of anything, SIR! SIR, it’s a public street, SIR, and I can walk anywhere I damned well please! You’ve got a damned nerve, SIR, talking to me like this…You may talk to your wife that way, SIR, but you can’t talk to ME like that!”

By this time he had turned and was hurrying away. I left him with this salvo: “You just throw your dogs into the backyard, SIR. You don’t even know how to take care of them!”

A few weeks later the dogs were gone and I found out he had separated from his wife. They’re back together now, but Grandma is around an awful lot keeping a watchful eye on the couple’s little girl.

Another altercation occurred while I was out with Slick one Saturday morning, looking at some things at a garage sale. Suddenly, a big white pitbull mix, which I had seen looking out the screen door of a nearby house quite often, suddenly sped out of the house, jumped me, then went after Slick.  No one at the sale moved a muscle, but the guy inside the house ran out as he heard me screaming to get his dog off Slick.  After getting his dog under control, he didn’t offer one word to see if me or Slick had been hurt. Instead, he laughed at me and mocked me for being upset!  When I told him he should watch that door, he immediately got defensive and nasty. The lack of common courtesy, at the very least, got me so ticked off that I called animal control to report the attack. If the guy had treated me like a neighbor and had expressed some concern about the welfare of me and Slick, I probably wouldn’t have picked up the phone. But it was his total disregard for the attack on me and Slick that really angered me.  Animal control went to the house, then told me that no one answered the door. They guy was HIDING and wouldn’t face up to what his dog had done.

A few weeks later, I was walking quite far from his house, when the same dog came running down the hill toward me ready to jump me and Slick again!  The guy came running and this time, laughed at me and asked me why I was screaming again! Obviously, this guy had no empathy or respect for me or Slick, so I called animal control again.  A lot of older people stroll in the neighborhood and this sort of thing could wind up in someone seriously hurt. This time animal control left a notice. Since that event, the door seems to stay closed.  Apparently, the guy got fined and that got his attention, not an actual attack in action!  But once again, there was a complete lack of respect and concern from this man.

Last week, I had another confrontation as I walked by a house I usually pass on our short walks at night.   Tammy and her husband were out putting up Christmas decorations. I’ve known Tammy for quite awhile on a casual basis and have talked to her about our dogs quite a few times. (By the way, their German shepherd doesn’t get walked very much, either).  But, on this night when I walked by, her husband, in keeping with the season,  jumped up and charged at me, screaming about how my dog pooped on his front yard. No thought about a simple inquiry, no, this guy was fully ramped up. As he screamed at me, I whipped out a handful of plastic bags and told him “I pick up!” I had seen some old poop on his front grass, but it certainly wasn’t from me! He assumed it was ME, though, and told me he didn’t care about “my plastic bags.” He called me a bitch. I then found myself with my fistful of bags in front of his face, telling him that I came from the East where we had pooper scooper laws and I knew how to walk my dog. He said he didn’t care about the East, around here, it didn’t matter…and I shouldn’t walk up his block any more!  (Sound familiar??) I got so in the guy’s face that he started to back off, and warned me not to threaten him!  Well, I just told he had a damned nerve accusing me of something he had absolutely no proof I was guilty of, and that he was an idiot if he thought he could tell me I couldn’t walk on a public street!  I then asked him point blank if he was on drugs or if he was drunk.

At that point, I turned to Tammy and said, “You know me, you know I’ve always picked up!” and she turned away and said, “I’m not getting involved!” I was taken aback and really wondered why an adult woman couldn’t tell her husband that he was way out of bounds. I got the feeling that something was wrong in that relationship. Coincidentally, yesterday I found out from one of their close neighbors that the whole family was dysfunctional. Tammy’s father was an alcoholic and her sister, whom I had met several times, had nearly killed herself a few days ago by going on a drinking binge.  It seems that Tammy must have repeated the pattern and, judging from what he did to me,  she married a guy with the potential for some pretty violent behavior.

What ties all these stories together? Men with irrational anger, nasty language, demands for me to curtail my normal activities–in other words, abusive men who become hostile instead of approaching a problem with some degree of civility.  It’s more than being uncouth, it’s an attitude toward women they don’t even know that manifests in behavior that is completely off the wall. It’s as if they all thought that they had a perfect right to be abusive right from the start.  Sensitivity? Empathy? Simple politeness? Normal behavior? I think not…Not with these guys…all of whom backed down as soon as they were surprised by a woman, and an older woman at that,  who gave it right back to them.

What’s especially upsetting is that I’ve had to feel that I was FORCED to get so aggressive in return. But something told me that if I didn’t these guys would just be getting the reaction they wanted–a sense of power over me and a satisfaction that their macho behavior had intimidated me. At the time of the first incident I was really rather surprised at my own reaction…the sense of power I had when I challenged this guy who came onto MY property and verbally assaulted me.  Somewhere along the way to getting older and wiser, I had figured out it out…no more taking it from anyone anymore, least of all bullies who had something screwed up in their approach to women.

Women put up with an awful lot of this sort of thing and sometimes it really goes beyond verbal assault into the realm of a real threat to life. The so-called protections of marriage or committed relationships don’t seem to apply when things get violent.  What’s given a benign name of “domestic violence” is really just, plain VIOLENCE.  It galls me that there’s a sense of being diminished as a human being simply because a person is somehow “related” to the abuser.  How is this different than a an owner abusing an animal?

Down here in “the Borderland” we have a lot of  animal abuse and “domestic violence.”  The two seem to go hand in hand.  But after what we’ve been through this year, with the misogyny ladled out to us with the help of the media, the Democratic Party, and their pre-ordained nominee, it’s clear that “women hate” is perfectly acceptable. Latest example? The fawning story in the Washington Post about Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau.

Now, he has transformed into what one friend called a “Washington political force” — a minor celebrity with a down payment on a Dupont Circle condo, whose silly Facebook photos with a Hillary Rodham Clinton cutout created what passes for controversy in Obama’s so far drama-free transition.

Yes, it’s all so silly. All so silly.

So now Bettyjean’s daughters suffer at the hands of a man whom they once thought they could trust. But, their trust has been cruelly betrayed this man AND the depraved indifference of “the system.”

As a child, I spent a lot of time in Lodi, NJ. It was my father’s hometown. His immigrant parents settled there and ran a mercantile. My father, his three brothers, sister and half-sister all grew up there. His sisters remained there all their lives. I recall visiting every Sunday. My Aunt Lucy lived in a building next to the old Lodi Modern Bakery on  Main Street, a short block from the old plant with the smokestacks that still stood there then. My Aunt Florence lived upstairs in the same building. The smells of the bakery permeated their apartments.  Aunt Lucy, as the oldest of all the children, was the matriarch of the family. We saw our uncles and cousins there when they came back to Lodi to visit. We would sit at the kitchen table and watch the adults play canasta and eat Aunt Lucy’s marvelous food.  Her stuffed artichokes were the best I have ever tasted. Aunt Florence always ate with Aunt Lucy and never cooked as far as I know. But she was the one who would stop by the Sorrento bakery and pick up the Italian pastries before hopping the bus to visit us.  We all went to the annual “Feast” and enjoyed being part of what was basically an Italian enclave of close families.

In my childhood memories, Lodi was a wonderful place. I haven’t been back in years, but it seems like it’s just like anyplace now…just like any other place in America and or anywhere in the world where violence against women – or the lurking threat of violence —  is part of our lives…

…We must take back our power and take back our lives…

***

UPDATE

Report on the arraignment of the attacker and his comments

Man in shotgun case barred from contacting ill wife

Thursday, December 18, 2008

The man who is accused of shooting his wife’s sister in the face with a shotgun told a judge this afternoon that he wanted to see his terminally ill wife “before she dies.”

But a judge ordered George Hartwig to make no contact with his estranged wife, the shooting victim or any family members.

“That sucks. I didn’t even point a gun at her,” Hartwig said, referring to his wife, Denise Richardson, who is dying of ovarian cancer.

Hartwig was formally charged at the hearing in Superior Court in Hackensack with the attempted murder of 41-year-old Louisa Rodas of Hackensack. She remained in critical condition this afternoon.

MORE

W.O.M.A.N.

~~ Posted by Kenosha Marge, August 8, 2008

(With additional comments by GRL)

I sat down to write a little essay about misogyny. I intended nothing too profound and nothing that hasn’t been said before, just something that hadn’t been said by me. I thought perhaps, as had happened before, that if I put something down in writing I would better understand it.

Looking back I wonder that I was so surprised by the brutality of the misogynistic attacks on the first woman to be a viable candidate for president. Sexism is such a part of daily life that few of us stop to think about it. A snort of disgust here, a sniff of resentment there, and on with the business of living our lives.

Older women have had a lifetime of watching incompetent and under qualified younger men come out of no where and snap up the best jobs. I’ve worked in offices where the big man couldn’t find his ass with either hand if his secretary hadn’t pointed it out to him. He got the big paycheck, the power, the glory and she got to do all the work while supporting the dunce. She also got to be taken out to lunch once a year during the week of April 22 – 28 for Secretary’s Day.

While fooling around googling sexism I came across this sentence: “On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day.” I reread it just to make sure that I was reading it correctly. Their husbands or boyfriends murder three women every day.

This is happening here in the USA. It’s happening here so going all C.J. Craig about the awfulness of how Saudi Arabia or some other foreign country treats it’s women seems a tad hypocritical. Unless we use the same logic we use to elect presidents; we may be bad but they’re worse. Feel better now?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k30MOebDSww

The United States is not a safe place for women. It may be safer than elsewhere but we don’t live elsewhere. We live here. Here where every single day of the year more than 3 women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends.

President Clinton signed into public law the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 on September 13, 1994. VAWA was reauthorized in 2000 and signed into law by President George Bush on January 5, 2006. It will be up for reauthorization in 2010. Okay, that takes care of that.

Somewhere in America, a woman is raped every 2 minutes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Four in 10 women at a veterans hospital reported being sexually assaulted while in the military. 7% of girls in grades 5-8 and 12% of girls in grades 9-12 said they had been sexually abused. Does this sound like a society that likes, respects or cares for women?

Gender trashing is epidemic, out in the open and unashamed. Women do it to other women. Men smirk and laugh while making malevolent sexist remarks on national television. It all seems part of the same underlying distain for women.

Cringe? Protest? What’s the matter sweetie can’t take a joke? Ya trying to play the victim? Laugh it up girls or the boys won’t think you’re a good sport.

Wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all go away. Wish I could make all the “isms” disappear as they should in any decent society. I wish busybodies would quit worrying about the sex lives of consenting adults. Homophobia isn’t any prettier than any other form of bigotry.

For the sake of my 7 granddaughters and my two lovely little great-granddaughters I wish my generation had done a better job of making a better world for them. I wish I could somehow keep them safe from all the ugliness that misogny will bring into their lives.

I am no smarter or any closer to the answers I sought then when I started this essay. I’ve learned some things. Some ugly, terrible things. I wish I was hopeful.

Because I don’t want to leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth and since we women can always find a way to get through what we have to get through with humor I give you a song about women.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIWpqSajYPM

****

GRL Adds:

This post hits home for me on so many levels.  For example, I trained a young man, only to see him get a promotion which I was in line for. He leap-frogged me, and I was forced to find another job to reach the level I should have reached in my former workplace.  As a temp, I literally bailed out a manager at Rolls Royce who screwed up the publication of a manual and who was even more dismissive of me after I did him the favor.

And then there is the concept of “comparable worth.” The idea has gone nowhere. Once in awhile you’ll hear how a stay-at-home mother is worth several hundred thousand dollars but, in reality, it’s more like $30,000 and that may be high.  As Liz Pulliam Weston of MSN says,  the “shocking truth” is that “Our society doesnt place a high dollar value on a homemaker’s work, and those who choose to stay home do so at their own economic peril. ”  Meanwhile, women earn what 80 cents for every dollar men earn.  Sure there are trade-off, choices which may contribute to this disparity.  But some of those choices have to be made because we don’t have the attitude toward supporting families and children that other countries have. (An interesting read on this subject here.)

Complacent young women these days may believe they’ve reached parity but reality hits them sooner or later.  But I’m afraid that something else is going on, too…that the violence and sexual messages against that are so prevalent and viral these days are being too easily accepted as “the norm.”  I’m afraid a lack of self-respect is just as deeply ingrained as it always was…

This campaign season has been a reality check for many of us who have beeing fighting for women’s rights for several decades. When you see NARAL and Planned Parenthood support an inexperienced guy who makes a habit of using and discarding people along the way, you have to wonder what has happened to the women leading these organizations.

They’ve gone soft, at a time we still need them to lead.