https://www.skyhinews.com/news/opinion/opinion-muftic-dr-christine-blasey-ford-vs-brett-kavanaugh/
Thursday Dr.
Christine Blasey Ford will have a chance to tell the public and the Senate
Judiciary Committee what she remembers of an attempted rape by Brett Kavanaugh
when she was 15 years old thirty-five years ago. The eleven male GOP members of the committee are in the majority
and many of them have already expressed their views that whatever she says will
not influence their support of Kavanaugh, their candidate to fill a Supreme
Court vacancy.
A USA Today/Ipsos poll last week found 40% of
the public is withholding judgment of whether Dr. Ford or Brett Kavanaugh is
telling the truth until after the testimony.
The hearings are not a trial and the final court making the judgment
call is public opinion, expressed in polls and at the ballot box November 6.
Enter a
new element, Dr. Blasey Ford’s accusation, that will be exhibit number one to
many women that the GOP is infested with men who do not believe attempted rape
is that big a deal and boys will be boys.
Kavanaugh would tilt the court for decades favoring overturning the
federal Roe v Wade law. Kavanaugh would be passing judgment about whether a
victim of rape should be allowed to have a legal abortion.
The timing could not be worse for the GOP
since in six weeks voters will be deciding whether they want to make the
effort to go to the polls and vote for Democrats in a midterm Congressional
election. The GOP already was in the hole with women before the emergence of
Dr. Ford’s accusation. The gender gap in July was 26% percent per a Quinnipiac poll.
The gap. was mostly fueled by the
history and actions of Donald Trump’s well publicized experience with women that
inspired the #MeToo movement and his campaign promise to overturn Roe v
Wade. The #MeToo movement has changed
public perception that the sexual assault victim’s going public perception
should be treated with respect and their charges taken seriously no matter how
many years ago the alleged event took place
Dr. Ford is up against a stacked deck
controlled by the most powerful men in
the United States, members of a party whose candidate for president won
his election with a public overlooking
his outrageous behavior toward women, an
admitted grabber documented in the Access Hollywood tapes, and a reputation widely known by pre political era media coverage that included several marriages and his demanding
death to the Central Park Five, young
men later exonerated of rape by DNA evidence. Last week President Trump
commented that if attempted rape was such a bad experience for Dr. Ford, she as
the 15-year-old, should have reported this to parents or the FBI at the
time. Even today, 63% of those sexually assaulted
never report the attack to authorities per the National Sexual Violence
Resource Center, more than 80% of campus sexual assaults go unreported per
several reports, and certainly not to the FBI who investigate only federal
crimes, which this is not. The reason is clear. Women and girls who report face
a defense by those they accused that is based upon tearing down both their
credibility and their background, painting them as loose women, drunk or
drugged, and were the guilty ones. As more witnesses emerge of Kavanaugh’s out
of control behavior in his younger days, even after Thursday’s hearing, expect
the court of public opinion will be bombarded with evidence for and against him
all the way to November 6.
http://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statistics-about-sexual-violence_0.pdf
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2018/09/report-sexual-assault.aspx
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2018/09/report-sexual-assault.aspx
