![]() ![]() As a woman who has experienced abuse, I'm equally dismayed and furious. As a physician, I'm terrified for my patients who have survived domestic violence. It is appalling that we're even debating whether a violent man with a documented history of perpetrating abuse, and who is under a restraining order for his victim's safety, has the right to own a gun. ![]() Bruen last year also played an important role in the Fifth Circuit ruling. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Rahimi's conviction when Rahimi's lawyer argued that the federal law under which his client was convicted - banning people subject to restraining orders for domestic violence from owning firearms - was unconstitutional because it does not fit our "nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation." The Supreme Court's decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. You read that correctly: the cost of domestic violence to American women rivals the cost of heart failure. To put these numbers into perspective, the estimated lifetime cost of heart failure is around $110,000 per person. This way, I figure, my pain is not totally senseless.ĭomestic violence is a serious problem in the U.S., generating a lifetime population economic burden of $3.6 trillion and an estimated lifetime cost of approximately $104,000 per female victim and $23,000 per male victim. Since this awful thing had to happen to me, I now use it to advocate for other women. Today, I openly share my experience as a physician who has known domestic abuse. I took a long time to leave, and sometimes I am ashamed of how long I stayed. But outside medicine, I internalized the abuses that a former partner regularly inflicted upon me, believing myself to be fundamentally unlovable and undesirable. As a provider, I wished that patients like Jane would realize their self-worth and fight for themselves. I struggled with moral distress for months. This particular case hit very close to home for me, a woman in medicine hiding my own dirty little secret of domestic abuse from colleagues and patients alike. ![]()
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