After end to spousal rape loophole, advocates look to housing, healthcare reforms to help sexual violence survivors

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – In voting to end a spousal rape loophole, the Ohio Senate last week completed a 40-year campaign to fully criminalize sexual violence in the context of marriage. But the legislature has a long way to go before state laws truly center survivors, advocates say.

The Senate unanimously passed House Bill 161 on Wednesday, making it a crime for people to drug and sexually assault their spouses. Iterations of the bill had been introduced since 1985 but had never made it to the floor of either chamber until this past November.  

“After so many years – I mean, we’re talking decades of this trying to pass – really, I don’t know that many of us were expecting for it to fully pass in the Senate in spring,” Emily Gemar, public policy director at the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence (OAESV), said.

Closing the spousal rape loophole was atop the legislative priorities for OAESV. With HB161 awaiting the governor’s signature, Gemar said OAESV has leveled its aim on other bills working through the legislature that the alliance hopes pass before the end of the year.

Addressing survivors’ housing needs

One such bill is House Bill 143, which would allow survivors of sexual and domestic violence to break their leases without penalty, or change their locks if their perpetrator lives with them. Housing needs are often thought of in the context of domestic violence, Gemar said, but survivors of sexual assault can face similarly immediate safety concerns. 

About 11% of women survivors in the U.S. reported being assaulted in their homes, according to a 2020 National Sexual Violence Resource Center report. But survivors of sexual assault by someone other than an intimate partner are often ineligible for resources geared toward domestic violence survivors, which can include access to a safe shelter or housing assistance.

Survivors can be stalked by their perpetrators, Gemar said, presenting a pressing safety risk. The physical and emotional toll of sexual violence can also rack up healthcare costs or impact a survivor’s ability to maintain employment, making them particularly vulnerable to housing insecurity.

Gemar said upward of 80% of survivors needing to relocate are unable to do so, primarily due to a lack of funding and options. Housing insecurity alone makes a person vulnerable to sexual violence, Gemar said – and revictimization of survivors is something OAESV “never wants to see.”

“We want to see people be able to recover, to be able to pursue whatever treatment or healing or care that they need,” Gemar said.

Since being introduced by Rep. Michele Grim (D-Toledo) last March, HB143 – also called the Ohio Safe Homes Act – has not received a committee hearing.

Outlawing unconscious, nonconsensual intimate exams

House Bill 89 is similar to HB161, Gemar said, in that it provides a “simple fix” to an obvious loophole in Ohio law: the allowance of medical providers and students to perform pelvic exams on unconscious or anesthetized patients without seeking explicit consent.

The performance of pelvic and other intimate exams on unconscious patients has for decades been a standard practice in teaching and research hospitals – with many studies finding more than half of medical students being instructed to perform such an exam. Gemar said such an exam, without the knowledge or consent of a patient, is not only retraumatizing for survivors of sexual assault but traumatizing in and of itself.

HB89 would require, in most circumstances, medical professionals to obtain specific, informed consent before performing a pelvic, rectal or prostate exam on an unconscious or anesthetized patient.

“It’s the year 2024. We have a lot of options for how we teach medical students and other healthcare-focused students how to do these exams, and a critical part of learning about how to care for patients should be walking patients through an informed consent process,” Gemar said.

HB89, introduced by Reps. Munira Abdullahi (D-Columbus) and Brett Hillyer (R-Uhrichsville), has not received a committee hearing in nearly a year.

Statutes of limitations reforms

Modifying or eliminating civil and criminal statutes of limitations remains a main policy goal for OAESV and sexual violence prevention advocates. Advocates saw limited success in the fall, when the legislature passed the Scout’s Honor Act to waive the statutes of limitations so survivors of abuse in the Boy Scouts of America could recoup the full settlement amount they were owed by the bankrupted organization.

House Bill 124 would eliminate the statute of limitation for criminal prosecutions of rape and greatly extend the limitation period for civil complaints of childhood sexual abuse. Its only committee hearing happened in October, and its sponsors, Rep. Tavia Galonski and Jessica Miranda, have both left the House.

OAESV has advocated for statutes of limitations reforms for years and will continue to do so, Gemar said. 

“We know that it empowers survivors to come forward and report their abuse and seek justice,” she said.