{"id":23235,"date":"2018-02-09T16:36:09","date_gmt":"2018-02-09T22:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=23235"},"modified":"2018-02-09T17:45:14","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T23:45:14","slug":"bill-would-establish-affirmative-consent-standard-for-sex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=23235","title":{"rendered":"Bill would establish affirmative consent standard for sex"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Judiciary Committee heard testimony Feb. 9 on a bill that would establish an affirmative consent standard in deciding cases of sexual assault.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_20156\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20156\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"20156\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?attachment_id=20156\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SenPansingBrooks_inline.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"297,445\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"senpansingbrooks_inline\" data-image-description=\"&lt;p&gt;Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SenPansingBrooks_inline.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-20156\" src=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SenPansingBrooks_inline-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SenPansingBrooks_inline-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SenPansingBrooks_inline.jpg 297w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-20156\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Under LB988, introduced by Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks, people must have a knowing and voluntary agreement, freely given, to engage in sexual contact. Pansing Brooks said it would better protect victims of sexual assault under the law.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is more than a definitional change\u2014it is about empowering survivors of sexual assault who seek justice from their attacker,\u201d she said. \u201cIt reframes the way our legal system approaches situations in which an individual did not give voluntary consent in sexual encounter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The existence of a current or previous dating, social or sexual relationship would not imply consent. Similarly, a person\u2019s clothing or alcohol and drug use would not constitute consent.<\/p>\n<p>Consent given under instances of force, fraud or coercion also would be considered invalid under the bill.<\/p>\n<p>Miranda Melson, vice president of PREVENT UNL, spoke in support of the bill. After she was raped, she said she reported it to university officials but was told the encounter was consensual because she never said \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2018Yes means yes\u2019 is based on enthusiasm and ongoing dialogue,\u201d Melson said. \u201cIt is not to punish people caught in seemingly ambiguous situations, but to prevent situations from being ambiguous in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>No person should be presumed to be constantly consenting to sexual activity, said Planned Parenthood representative Meg Mikolajczyk.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSeeking permission instead of assuming consent is exceptionally important in the way power imbalances present themselves,\u201d she said. \u201cAffirmative consent restructures the power dynamic and allows people to actively set their boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Representing the Women\u2019s Foundation of Lincoln and Lancaster County, Kathleen Uhrmacher also supported the bill.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis reframes the way consent is viewed and thus moves the onus from victims of sexual assault to the perpetrators,\u201d Uhrmacher said. \u201cBy requiring both partners to make a conscious, voluntary affirmative agreement to engage in sex with each other, LB988 empowers sexual assault victims and establishes clear boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Opposing the measure was Molly Keane, representing the Nebraska County Attorneys Association. She said she admires the motivation behind the bill but testified that the language was confusing and could make it more difficult for prosecutors to prove cases against sexual assault perpetrators.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re responsible for proving every element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt,\u201d Keane said. \u201cThis would force the defense to prove something, rather than forcing the state to prove its case.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The committee took no immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Judiciary Committee heard testimony Feb. 9 on a bill that would establish an affirmative consent standard in deciding cases of sexual assault.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23229,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[146],"class_list":["post-23235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-sen-patty-pansing-brooks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/LB988PansingBrooks2-9-18.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23236,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23235\/revisions\/23236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}