Recently we heard jaw-dropping words from Governor Sarah Palin about her son abusing his girlfriend because of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It has taken domestic violence advocates years to achieve a modicum of abuser accountability. We still have more to do and Governor Palin’s words attempted to move us back a couple of decades. To a time where abusers can abscond their accountability by blaming victims or provide reasons to justify why they inflicted pain on another person.

As an organization made-up of survivors domestic violence and child witnesses to domestic violence, we cannot allow anyone to take us back to a time where blame is placed on everyone but the abuser. We have worked too hard for abuser accountability and will not let it go.  The lack thereof is why victims domestic violence die.

We support our veterans and believe that they deserve the utmost care and respect for their service. We remain the voice of survivors and speak-out to those who denigrate victims with comments that allow abusers to continue to abuse.

We call on Governor Palin to rethink her comments and recognize the millions of survivors she re-victimized through her comments.