by Stephanie Hauer — On November 6, a 27-year-old Irish man in Cork was found unanimously not guilty of raping a 17-year-old girl. As part of his defense, his senior legal counsel, Elizabeth O’Connell, told the jury, “Does the evidence out rule the possibility that she was attracted to the defendant and was open to meeting someone and being with someone? You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front.” I was not there when the alleged a

by Herb Geraghty — Abortion is wrong because it kills a human being. I suspect almost everyone who identifies as pro-life or anti-abortion would likely agree with this sentiment, despite pro-choice rhetoric that attempts to paint pro-lifers as cranky old Christian men who simply want to control women’s bodies and punish them for having sex. We know this stereotype isn’t true: that pro-lifers come from all different backgrounds, that we are compassionate, that we seek to prote

In the light of the #MeToo movement, where people around the world are sharing their stories of sexual harassment, rape, and abuse in the workplace, on college campuses, and in social settings, the world can see the dehumanization and injustice that individuals encounter every day due to sexual victimization. It happens more than a lot and it happens everywhere. The stories you can’t as easily hear on the news or see on social media, though, are the ones of the individuals wh

Sexual assault is a serious issue, especially on college campuses. The White House’s “It’s On Us” Campaign, launched in September, is just one example of the numerous programs dedicated to stopping sexual assault on campuses and just in general. However, there is an unfortunate trend on college campuses, which should cause anyone concerned about the issue to think twice before embracing changes such as “yes means yes,” also known as “affirmative consent,” or moving towards a

BY MARY STROKA London’s Metropolitan Police and British Transport Police launched a program last week to try to thwart sexual assault on and around public transportation. A February 2013 Transport for London (TFL) report stated that, according to TFL surveys, 15 percent of women said they "had experienced unwelcome sexual behaviour while travelling on, waiting for, or heading to or from public transport in London" in the last year, but 91 percent had not reported it to the po

BY MARY STROKA Photo by Gigi Ibrahim from Cairo, Egypt [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Egyptian media reported that a Dutch journalist was raped by five men during the protests in Egypt against Muslim Brotherhood-supported president Mohamed Morsi earlier this week. She has since been hospitalized. Her case is one of at least 46 reported cases since the protests have begun. Maria Munoz, co-founder of Tahrir Bodyguard, said in

BY MARY STROKA How do we eliminate rape? Several articles published today were about various ideas of methods on how to lower the numbers of rapes. An article from The Daily Beast, "From the Anti-Rape Bra to Chastity Belts: How Women Use Clothing for Protection," describes a plethora of devices that may discourage rapists. They include an anti-rape bra that will deliver 82 shocks, a vending machine disguise, pepper spray disguised as lipstick, pink cellphones that double as

“It’s happening in your neighborhood, happening in your town, your village, your city,” Ohio Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine said about the Steubenville rape case that found two high school football players guilty of sexually assaulting an incapacitated teenage girl1. Although sexual assault is not happening in every neighborhood, the effect of the statement is critical. This is an issue that directly impacts enough people – 200,780 cases, nationally, of rape or sexual assault in 2004

I was adopted nearly from birth. At 18, I learned that I was conceived out of a brutal rape at knife-point by a serial rapist. Like most people, I’d never considered that abortion applied to my life, but once I received this information, all of a sudden I realized that, not only does it apply to my life, but it has to do with my very existence. It was as if I could hear the echoes of all those people who, with the most sympathetic of tones, would say, “Well, except in case