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Lawmakers have revived talks on a 2023 bill expanding protections against sexual abuse. Senators passed a new version Friday, shifting it back to the House — though the changes were minor.
The bill, H.40, says if people agree to use protection before or during sex, neither party can remove or tamper with the condom without the other’s consent — a type of abuse called stealthing.
Currently no state law prohibits that deception. The bill would allow survivors to seek damages in civil court.
Vermont laws are far behind in protecting victims of assault, so this bill is important, Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky, P/D-Chittenden-Central, said in an interview.
“We know that this is something that’s happening and we know that consent and informed consent is really important,” Vyhovsky said.
Dana Doran from the Vermont Office of the Attorney General has spent 14 years working with victims of domestic and sexual violence. Many felt they had few adequate avenues to seek support, Doran said in a Senate judiciary committee meeting April 2.
“I’ve heard the frustration that they’ve felt,” Doran said.
House lawmakers passed the bill last March, but time ran out before senators could do much with it. So it was put on hold until recent weeks.
As the bill sat in purgatory, some people worried legislators were ignoring it Vyhovsky said that wasn’t true.
Prior to the bill’s passage, Doran told legislators they should revise vague definitions in the language. Specifically, Doran wanted the bill to define coercive and controlling behavior as a type of assault, she said in the April 2 meeting.
Laura Byerly, director of the Victim Rights Project at Vermont Legal Aid, agreed.
“A survivor of coercive and controlling behavior recently said to me, ‘I figured the only way out of this was either that I would die or he would kill himself, and if he didn’t kill me first, then I would be free,” Byerly said.
But in the end, senators passed the bill without that addition. The amended version approved in the Senate cleans up the House version’s language and updates the effective date to this year.