Time to do one thing about violence towards ladies

Kylee Montiero was almost three months pregnant when she was brutally murdered earlier this month in Rehoboth.

Her boyfriend Sean Groom, father of Kylee’s unborn child, was arrested this week and charged with homicide after he confessed to the killing and her physique was discovered buried on the property the place he was dwelling, in line with police.

The media is rightly being attentive to the story, however Beacon Hill is just not. Why?

Why is Maura Healey, our feminine governor, not calling a press convention and standing with our feminine Lawyer Basic, Andrea Campbell, to decry this vicious assault on a pregnant girl?

Healey and Campbell had been solely too pleased to make use of ladies’s bodily autonomy as a serious theme of their political campaigns. They stated ladies ought to vote for them as a result of they might defend ladies’s bodily autonomy. Good. Abortion rights are essential. However home violence is a profoundly extra essential bodily autonomy difficulty for girls. Put bluntly, useless ladies don’t want abortions.

Kylee Montiero’s bodily autonomy couldn’t have been extra viciously violated, however neither Healey nor Campbell stated a phrase. The 2 highest-ranking regulation enforcement officers in Massachusetts, who declare to care about ladies’s our bodies and lives, by no means say something in regards to the tens of hundreds of ladies who are suffering abuse yearly, or the boys who abuse them, a lot much less to they criticize the programs that fail to carry males accountable.

In contrast, the courts have been sounding the alarm for a very long time.

In a current case, the Supreme Judicial Court docket revealed surprising statistics displaying that home violence is probably the most prevalent violent crime in each district court docket in Massachusetts. 70% of instances contain home abuse and virtually all are dismissed or finish with no severe punishment.

Abusive males know they’ll stroll away scot-free in the event that they hurt ladies, so after all they hold doing it. No marvel Groom thought nothing of killing his pregnant girlfriend. He instructed cops he didn’t need her round. He stated he was anxious in regards to the monetary burden of a kid. Why ought to he take duty for impregnating her when she may simply get an abortion? How dare she impose fatherhood obligations on him.

This sense of entitlement is widespread amongst abusers, although it isn’t completely their fault. Males know that folks like Maura Healey and Andrea Campbell don’t care about violence towards ladies. They see all of the useless our bodies and so they know that no one’s speaking in regards to the difficulty. 22 Massachusetts ladies had been killed by home abuse in 2024 – a 15% improve over the 12 months earlier than, and the numbers are on monitor to be even worse in 2025. However not one authorities official has spoken out.

There’s something that we the folks can do. A invoice has been filed with the legislature that may amend our hate crime regulation to incorporate ladies. Each different state in New England protects ladies, however Massachusetts doesn’t. Our state covers each possible class, however not ladies. Even transgender is protected, so if a girl was a person, and she or he is killed, it’s a hate crime, but when she has all the time been a girl, it isn’t. Even when I beat you mindless whereas screaming “I’m punching you within the face since you are feminine,” it’s not a hate crime. By refusing to incorporate ladies, our authorities has declared as official state coverage that it’s completely authorized to focus on ladies for violence.

Including ladies to the hate crime regulation will ship a unique message, and clarify to the residents of Massachusetts that harming a girl as a result of she is feminine is just not solely a criminal offense towards her, however can also be a criminal offense towards ladies as a category, our  group as an entire, and democracy itself. Hate crimes are designed to acknowledge that all of us have pores and skin within the sport when somebody is harm due to who they’re in society.

We are able to all assist change the regulation by calling Healey’s and Campbell’s workplaces, protesting on the State Home, refusing to vote for anybody except they prioritize fixing the hate crime regulation, emailing our state senators and representatives, speaking in regards to the difficulty on social media, telling our associates and neighbors, and so on.

If this horrendous disrespect for girls bothers you, please do what you possibly can. If it doesn’t, get skilled assist and depart Massachusetts till you’re all tuned up.