Posted: Wednesday, 17 December 2008 11:16AM
Domestic Violence Is Everybody's Business
Steve Corbett Reporting
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Another man has killed another woman.
And then he killed himself.
She had recently broken off a relationship with him, according to police.
Yesterday’s murder suicide at the Lockheed Martin plant in Archbald provides more questions and few answers about what drives a man to believe that if he can’t “have” a woman, then nobody can.
Abuse and assault and murder – followed by total self-destruction – have become all too common in America.
Statistics abound with few easy answers about how to prevent a man from picking up a gun – and that’s usually what happens in cases of male on female-murder suicide – and ending it all for them both.
In the tragic aftermath, we bemoan violence or the easy availability of guns. We say that he must have snapped. We wonder what she did to push him over the edge, even though the woman usually hasn’t done anything at all.
And then we wait for the next time because there’s always a next time.
This time was our most recent time.
Most times, though, a killer who’s a man doesn’t take his own life.
He just takes hers.
A man murders a woman every day in America.
Think about that sad fact.
“Womensphere” reported in August that over 1,000 women are killed each year by a former spouse or partner.
“In the United States a woman’s risk of being murdered by an intimate partner is highest after leaving an abusive relationship,” according to the Womensphere report.
“The bloody trail of those deaths, along with injuries (two million a year) crisscrosses the nation each year and overshadows women’s daily lives,” the report says.
Nearly one-third of all U.S. women report experiencing violence from a current or former spouse or boyfriend at some point in their lives, according to the San Francisco-based Family Violence Prevention Fund.
Women who have experienced domestic violence are 80 percent more likely to have a stroke, 70 percent more likely to have heart disease, 60 percent more likely to have asthma, and 70 percent more likely to drink heavily than women who have not experienced intimate partner violence, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga.
The Womensphere report said that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick declared a “domestic violence emergency” in his state in early June when deaths at the hands of a domestic partner nearly tripled to 42 in 2007 from 15 in 2005.
Patrick signed legislation creating statewide guidelines for hospitals treating victims of violence and called for strengthened training for police officers in the state.
Still, nineteen victims had died in Massachusetts as of August in 2008.
It’s time for our state legislators to get more involved.
The governor’s office, the Pennsylvania Senate and House of Representatives can and must address the continuing violence and death.
Increased funding even in tough economic times is not too much to ask because domestic violence and related death takes a terrible toll on everyone.
We don’t know if heightened awareness and available help would have stopped Lockheed Martin security guard George Zadolnny, 59, of Taylor, from using his service weapon to shoot and kill Deborah Bachak, 46, of Mayfield.
But we do know that increased attention and action to safeguard at-risk women can save lives.
The epidemic of violence against women must stop.
For that to happen, though, we must do far more than we’re doing to teach men to stop abusing, beating and sometimes killing women. We also need to do a far better job helping women to protect themselves from such danger.
The costs of prevention are high.
But the costs of negligence are higher.
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