Sen. Wendy Davis speaking to rape victims at Dallas City Hall Plaza (Dallas Voice/David Taffet)
Gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis and three rape victims spoke at Dallas City Hall Plaza today (Tuesday, Aug. 12). Among those speaking was Courtney Underwood, who co-founded Dallas Area Rape Crisis Center and who helped establish the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, or SANE, program at Presbyterian Hospital.
In the Texas Senate, Davis sponsored legislation that became law requiring all hospitals with emergency rooms to provide rape kits. In Dallas, only two of 46 hospitals provided treatment for rape victims before the law.
Additional legislation required those rape kits to be tested and victims are notified the testing procedure is ongoing. Before the law went into effect, more than 18,000 rape kits remained untested in Texas — 4,000 of those in Dallas County.
Underwood said the percentage of people raped in the LGBT community is even higher than in the general population. One in four women and one in 10 men are victims of sexual assault, she said. Those numbers are two to three times higher among the LGBT community and three to four times higher among homeless LGBT youth.
Davis recently began airing her first TV ads in the governor’s race. Texas Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott is Davis’ Republican opponent, and her ad spotlights his record when he served as a Texas Supreme Court justice. In a case involving a door-to-door salesman who raped a woman in her home, Abbott found the company was not at fault for not doing a background check on the employee. What isn’t mentioned in the ad is that Abbott was in the minority and the court found in favor of the victim’s right to sue the company.
Rape is the most under-reported crime and only about 3 percent of rapists spend a day in jail.