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Violence Against Women Act Archives – Concerned Women for America

Nance: Biden’s Priorities are Out of Step with Reality

By | CEO, News and Events, Press Releases, Sexual Exploitation | No Comments

For Immediate Release
March 16, 2022
Contact: Katie Everett, Press Secretary
[email protected]
(571) 420-2488

Biden’s Priorities are Out of Step with Reality

Policies Aimed at Protecting Women Fail

 WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, President Joe Biden signed into law the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Reauthorization Act of 2022, legislation passed by Congress as part of a massive government spending package.

Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee (CWALAC), on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of Concerned Women for America (CWA)’s grassroots supporters across the country, opposes this effort to update VAWA because it fails women. For over 40 years, CWALAC has championed the privacy and safety rights of women, supporting causes for justice and assistance to victims of sexual exploitation and domestic violence. This VAWA renewal focuses on all the wrong priorities, such as:

  • erasing in several instances the word “women,”
  • prioritizing funding for unspecified groups of people who self-identify with a particular “sexual orientation” or “gender identity,”
  • sex education recommendations for schools,
  • funding that leaves an open door to abortion giant Planned Parenthood, a VAWA grant recipient, and
  • millions of dollars in a set-aside for special services for so-called “LGBT” communities and exactly $0 in set-asides for women survivors in rural communities.

VAWA was originally enacted as a government and community response to violent crimes against women. Special interests have since hijacked the program. Current VAWA programs are so extreme that they would require a service provider to ignore a survivor if she speaks up about feeling unsafe residing with a man who identifies as a woman. Since at least 2013, updates to VAWA have undermined the program’s critical mission and shamefully politicize care and recovery for survivors. Women are once again left to hold the bag.

“The deceptive name of this bill fails to identify it’s real effect – the dramatic advancement of gender ideology in federal law, including for the first-time millions in special set-asides for LGBT+ programs in addition to the millions already given to this identity group,” said Penny Nance, CEO and President of CWALAC

“The President’s comments today were stuck in the past and missed the mark on what this law will truly mean for women. I will continue to work on behalf of our more than 500,000 members to keep this Administration accountable for protecting women when it takes action that does the exact opposite.”

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Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee is the legislation and advocacy arm of Concerned Women for America, the Nation’s largest public policy organization for women; we are dedicated to promoting Biblical values and Constitutional principles. More information is available at ConcernedWomen.org

Congress Continues to Fail Women by Denying their Biological Reality in VAWA Protections

By | Feminist / Women's Issues, News and Events, Press Releases | No Comments

For media inquiries, contact:  

Katie Everett
(571) 420-2488
[email protected]

Washington, D.C. – Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee (CWALAC) has a long history of championing the rights of women to be protected from sexual exploitation.   We stood strong for women survivors of rape and demanded that rape kits be prioritized in forensic testing under the Debbie Smith Act, and because we did not back down, Congress implemented promising changes for rape survivors in the 2019 reauthorization. 

Recently, we joined in urging the passage of the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 (H.R.4445). Its passage is a long-overdue action that reflects the all-too present disregard for the concerns and dignity of many women by elected officials. 

But the current bipartisan Senate Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization (S.3623) continues to fail women. Congress stripped women of protections on the basis of sex in the 2013 VAWA reauthorization by prioritizing rights for any biological male self-identifying as a woman over the safety and privacy rights of women.  

Female identity and status are being flouted under current federal law intended to protect women victims and survivors.  S.3623 does nothing to correct that failure. 

Women survivors of violence and sexual assault deserve the full protection of our laws for their security, not denied it.  Unfortunately, that has been the case since President Obama signed the last VAWA reauthorization into law. Like every other VAWA reauthorization introduced or passed by Congress since then, S.3623 as introduced rejects ensuring protections for women on the basis of biological sex. 

Because of VAWA’s failure to uphold its purpose to protect women, CWALAC is forced to oppose any VAWA reauthorization which fails to clarify that nothing in the intent or implementation of its provisions may be interpreted to compromise, threaten, or undermine the privacy, safety, and rights of females in order to accommodate biological men who identify as women. 

Press Release: TODAY IN CONGRESS:  Democrats War on Women 

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 17, 2021

Contact:
Natalie Panettiere
202-266-4816, [email protected]

TODAY IN CONGRESS:  Democrats War on Women

The Democrat war on women and our rights is in full force this week. As part of the Biden Agenda, Democrats are determined to:

  • Erase the scientific fact of the sexes as male and female with the Equal Rights Amendment and the Equality Act,
  • Compromise women’s safety and privacy by giving males identifying as women access to female shelters and prisons under the Violence Against Women Act,
  • Force female athletes to the sidelines in competition against biological males identifying as girls in women’s sports.

All three of these issues are seeing action today, Wednesday, March 17.

The Equality Act
Read Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee’s (CWALAC) letter on the Equality Act sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee Members.

Violence Against Women Act
The House of Representatives will vote on the Violence Against Women Act around 4:30 p.m. Read CWALAC’s letter to members of the House.

Equal Rights Amendment
The House of Representatives will also vote on the E.R.A. with voting starting around 4:30 p.m. Read CWALAC’s letter to the House members.

CWALAC’s statement on the E.R.A.:

Democrats in Congress are determined to resurrect the Equal Rights Amendment even after yet another decision by a federal court declared ratification dead. The agenda of those fueling this decades-old fight today needs to be exposed. It’s no longer about equal rights for all women or about upholding the status of women as female. Here’s what the E.R.A. Coalition has to say:

While the effort to amend the Constitution to include sex equality began nearly a century ago, our renewed efforts are centered on Black, Indigenous and Women of Color, gender-nonconforming and transgender women and girls, and nonbinary people– those who are most impacted by systemic inequities.”

 Concerned Women for America L.A.C. said, “‘R.I.P E.R.A.’ Women deserve fairness and equality under the law, but Congress should not waste its time on an E.R.A. that could, in fact, undermine the progress we’ve made over the last 50 years. If legislators are truly concerned about women, they should spend their effort focusing on measures to uphold the dignity and status of women as uniquely female, not turn back the clock on gains we’ve made and ERAse women.”

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Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee (CWALAC) is the legislation and advocacy arm of Concerned Women for America. Concerned Women for America is the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization with a rich 40-year history of helping our members across the country bring Biblical principles into all levels of public policy.

 

Democrats Playing Election-Year Politics with the Violence Against Women Act

By | Blog, Feminist / Women's Issues, Legislative Updates, News and Events | No Comments

CWA’s Vice President of Government Relation, Doreen Denny wrote the following Op-Ed about the Violence Against Women Act.

Senators Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Dianne Feinstein (D-California) spent months collaborating on a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Their attempts to bring bipartisanship back to the process after the House majority rejected such collaboration were noble.  But their effort came to a “screeching halt” when Senate Democrats called a press conference to announce they were sponsoring the House bill instead.

“Once again, the Democrats are putting politics ahead of people and have decided to move forward on the House-passed VAWA bill,” Sen. Ernst announced.  This is a bill which Senate Democrats know full well is a non-starter for Senate approval.  Rejecting any history of bipartisanship or restraint, House Democrats loaded their reauthorization bill, H.R. 1585, with gun control, unemployment entitlements, and expansive ideological mandates.

Sen Ernst went on to explain how her good faith efforts with the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee were derailed as a political calculation. “Election-year politics are in full swing, and the grim reality is Democrats cannot afford to be seen giving Republicans a win. The far-left agenda of the House has hijacked the process.”

The politicization of something as significant as the Violence Against Women Act should have no place in the development of policy. Women victims of violence should be the last thing used as a pawn for political gain.  And yet that is exactly what the Democrats have done again this year.

This is not the first time VAWA has been held hostage in high-stakes partisan politics. It happened last year as VAWA was set to expire during the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

The National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence (NTF) is a coalition of activist groups who guard the programs and funds for VAWA grantees. For years, they have worked in lock step with the Democrats to promote a progressively leftist agenda on VAWA and to demand that the same money go to the same providers. They are not fools in playing political games.

At the height of the Supreme Court battle, NTF sent a letter to Senate Republican leadership “to apprise you of our intention to disengage from negotiations over VAWA” to protest the handling of Christine Blasey Ford.

NTF laid out ground rules for how the Judiciary Committee should proceed with  Ford, concluding that, “Justice demands a fair process that treats Professor Ford far better than with the derision, scorn, and humiliation to which Professor Hill was subjected 27 years ago.”

Following their Kavanaugh defeat, the left cried foul at the “expiration of VAWA” and used it as a weapon against congressional Republicans in the 2018 election. Their prize: a House takeover, Speaker Pelosi, and a VAWA reauthorization bill showcasing their leftist policy agenda.

Considering how VAWA has been politicized over the last decade, it should come as no surprise that Sen. Ernst’s noble effort to work with the Democrats on an improved and modernized Violence Against Women Act broke down.  It didn’t surprise us. NTF is back on message demanding that the Senate pass the left’s wish list: unbounded unemployment benefits that could bankrupt states, gun confiscation orders that could disarm vulnerable women, and expansion of transgender rights giving biological men who claim to be women access to female domestic violence shelters and prisons, compromising the safety of women who have no other place of refuge or escape.

Meanwhile H.R. 1585’s partisan overreach falls short of important improvements that the Senate should correct. It overlooks meaningful protections for emerging threats to women in our country including female genital mutilation, honor killings, and forced marriages.  It deletes sex trafficking as a form of sexual assault against women and girls. It lets pimps off the hook and ignores the acceleration of threats from online predators.  It rejects full transparency and accountability in VAWA grant programs, including the hundreds of thousands of taxpayer funds that have gone every year to Planned Parenthood.

So long as Democrats choose to put election-year politics above safety, protection, and justice for women survivors, the effort to put a stronger VAWA on solid ground for the coming years will be futile. It’s time for Democrats to stop using VAWA to score political points and embrace a truly bipartisan reauthorization bill that can reach the President’s desk this year.

See Additional Pieces Written by Doreen Denny.