Speaking of Women's Health

Domestic Violence: Breaking the Silence

• SWH • Season 3 • Episode 30

Share episode

Send us a text

Domestic violence cuts across all layers of society, affecting people of every age, background, and socioeconomic status. In this powerful conversation, Dr. Holly Thacker welcomes attorneys Ashleigh Holmes and Alexandria Ruden to break down the critical facts about intimate partner violence that everyone should know.

The statistics are sobering: a woman is assaulted by an intimate partner every nine seconds in the United States. The National Domestic Violence Hotline receives a staggering 775,000 contacts annually. But behind these numbers are real people facing complex, dangerous situations that aren't always visible to others.

Whether you're personally affected by domestic violence, supporting someone who is, or simply want to better understand this pervasive issue, this episode provides crucial insights that could save lives. Remember, no one deserves to live in fear, and there are resources available to help:

Support the show

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Speaking of Women's Health podcast. I'm your host, dr Holly Thacker. I'm the Executive Director of Speaking of Women's Health, and thanks for joining me back in our sunflower house for a brand new episode. And most of our topics are happy and upbeat and uplifting because our mission is to be strong, be healthy and be in charge. But we do need to cover some very important, delicate and distressing topics. As you'll recall, at the end of season one and the end of season two we covered end of life care planning and very important to do in the whole life cycle. We also have covered divorce and what women need to do to kind of be prepared and to understand some of those loopholes. Today's topic is a very important topic that cuts across all layers of society and that is domestic violence, and we in the medical field have termed it intimate partner violence. And I have two fabulous guests with me today that I'm so happy to introduce. They're both attorneys, ashley Brie and Alexandria Rudin, and we're going to discuss very important topics and some new changes in Ohio law. Now we're in 80 countries, we're currently in the state of Ohio and there's some new legislation that just took effect in August or in March of this year and then. So we'll be talking about that.

Speaker 1:

But I always encourage people that this is not medical advice or it's not legal advice. We just want to empower you. There may be someone in your family or yourself or your circle of friends. So about Ashley? She graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of Arts in Political Science and then she went to Cleveland Marshall College of Law and she was number one in her class and had a 4.0 GPA and she is an attorney and also a mother of a delightful six-year-old son, william, who Artemis loves playing with. You all have heard about my granddaughter, artemis and his. He's had fabulous birthday parties. He turned her on to Spider-Man and being a superhero and I think that's a really good feeling and we all want to have that internal agency and power. And she also loves to exercise and run and advocate and create opportunities for children with autism throughout Northeast Ohio.

Speaker 1:

Our second guest, alexandria Rudin, is a supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland and she has special expertise in domestic violence representation and she is on several committees and associations. Is admitted to the Supreme Court of Ohio, the Advisory Committee on Domestic Violence. The Supreme Court of Ohio Subcommittee on Abuse, neglect and Dependency, an officer presidency, an officer, a board member for the Office of Criminal Justice and several other statewide and community-wide important committees and she's a national lecturer and she's also a trainer and she's also co-authored Ohio's Domestic Violence Law and she's received a lot of awards for exceptional service in the field of family violence prevention and Ohio criminal justice services. So I am thrilled to welcome both of you. Welcome Ashley and Alexandria.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Speaker 1:

Holly. So I first want to talk and ask Alexandria. Like we talk about intimate partner violence, try to be as comprehensive and inclusive as possible. But you were saying that domestic violence is the term in the state of Ohio.

Speaker 3:

And that's based, interestingly, on the statute and domestic violence, our family or household member relationships. And because of the way Ohio has constructed all their protection order statutes we have so many, we have six statewide protection order statutes that each addresses something different one addresses dating violence, one addresses juvenile, one addresses non-intimate partner stalking relationships and one addresses family or household members. And then we have criminal statutes as well. But because we have terminated, we've made the term domestic violence. We use that Now, interestingly, other people do use intimate partner violence, but intimate partner violence is a bit broader than what we use as domestic violence, Suffice it to say I don't think it really matters. I think intimate partner violence is a larger term and covers more, but we include that as family or household members. And again, when we use that as family or household members, we are considering family violence as well, not just intimate partners. That's why our statute is broader and it includes that.

Speaker 1:

So I recently was renewing my license medical license in Florida and they actually have mandatory domestic violence and violence against children training. I thought that was very interesting. Ashley, can you talk to us a little bit about myths? I mean, I think that a lot of people are embarrassed if they've been involved or a victim of domestic violence. Can you just give us a little bit about the statistics and why? This is something that really we all should be aware of and know what our resources and our remedies are.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, holly. Well, as you are probably well aware, domestic violence does remain a significant pervasive crisis on a nationwide and a statewide level. The National Domestic Violence Hotline, which is one of the resources available to victims, gets a staggering 775,000 calls per year calls, chats or texts people reaching out.

Speaker 1:

Do you have that number? We can certainly put it in the show notes.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I can get you after this, like my outline with the stats.

Speaker 2:

Approximately one in 10 women have experienced physical violence, rape or stalking by an intimate partner.

Speaker 2:

In this country, a woman is assaulted by an intimate partner every nine seconds, and on a statewide level it's interesting because the Ohio Domestic Violence Network Domestic Violence Network, which is an agency in Columbus that does lobbying it's a resource for victims.

Speaker 2:

I'm sure that Alexandra can talk more about ODSI, the High Domestic Violence Network, but they do every year. So for the last 18 years, they've participated in this national counts of domestic violence incidences and other stats about domestic violence through the National Network to End Domestic Violence. So that's an organization in Washington DC that the Ohio Domestic Violence Network belongs to, and so for 18 years, they've done these counts and so like, for example, you know, according to the 18th annual report, they collect data from like a single day in a year I think it was like September 7th of 2023. They say you know, they pick a day each year. We're going to see how many people call this day, how many people are served in Ohio in just one day, and they do that every year for the last 18 years, and so in 2023, you know, they received 658 contacts. That's just in one day, so that averages more than 27 contacts per hour.

Speaker 1:

They served 2,445 victims, whether it be providing transitional housing or other resources, and the 17th annual counts report was very similar, except they served, you know, 2,900 victims of the five-year anniversary of the pandemic and certainly with all the shutdowns, there was definite increases in violence abuse of children, abuse of women and I know our laws have recently changed. Before we get into all of that detail, I wanted Alexandria to tell us just a little bit about the historical context of how this has evolved and how violence amongst strangers is different than someone that you know.

Speaker 3:

Well, I will start by saying domestic violence has existed from the beginning of time. We used to have an edict in Russia in the 1600s that spelled out how a man most effectively beat his wife. He was even allowed to kill her if he did so for disciplinary purposes. In England we had the rule of thumb you could beat your wife, but it's with a stick less thick than the thumb. Then we moved into America and what we found in the 1800s is let's ignore domestic violence. Remember, this is a family matter. Let's leave it up to the parties to forgive and forget. And that brought us into the 20th century and suddenly we had the women's movement, we had the civil rights movement and out of that women began to talk and realize there were many problems. So they looked at the laws on the book and we had assault laws. But assault? The judicial system and the law enforcement system treated assaults between strangers very differently than assaults between family or household members, specifically spouses at that point. So if you're a spouse, you go back with your husband. We don't want to expend resources for you. If you're a stranger, these people will not go back with their assaulter, so we're gonna focus on them.

Speaker 3:

However, as more and more women got together from different areas all around the country. Really, there was a determination that we needed to look at domestic violence as a crime, separate and apart from assault, and the only way we could do that is to create a statute specific to domestic violence. And that is exactly what we did. So we we put we put domestic violence, assaults and issues, giving it a level playing field, and then we began to train on it.

Speaker 3:

And of course in Ohio we have two aspects of the law. We have the crime of domestic violence and then we have civil protection orders, which is the issue in itself. That means a victim can call the prosecutor. A victim can ask that charges be filed. Prosecutor has to make that determination, whether there's cause for it. But a civil protection order is victim-driven. She goes into a courthouse, she asks for a protection order, for protection for herself, for her children, and then there are several remedies that go along with it. But that's sort of how this developed. And for Ohio in 1975, then Attorney General William Brown convened a task force to determine whether domestic violence was epidemic in the state and out of that Ohio's domestic violence law was passed in 1979.

Speaker 1:

And it's taken all this time to figure out what to do with this statute and and so, ashley, you were telling me that in march of this year, 2025, that there was a new law that went into effect. Can you tell us about that?

Speaker 2:

yes. So, um, in march, march 20th of 2025, there were actually two there was a Senate Bill 100, which created an entire new statute criminalizing placing a tracking device or application on a person's person or their property without their consent or failing to remove the same if consent had previously been given and is now revoked. And there's even presumptions in the statute that if consent was given, it's automatically revoked. So, if one of the parties files for divorce or disillusion, if one of the parties goes and seeks a protection order, disillusion, if one of the parties goes and seeks a protection order, then consent is revoked presumptively under the statute and you are to remove or discontinue use of that tracking device and tracking application. And the reason that this is very germane is because, you know, I don't know if we're going to get into.

Speaker 2:

You know, in 1984, the year I was born, the creation of the power and control wheel, domestic violence. You think, oh, you know, in 1984, the year I was born, the creation of the power and control wheel, domestic violence. You think, oh, you know, getting hit in the face. No, it's a pot of play of tactics used to gain and maintain control over the victim, and one of those tactics that's often used is stalking, is overreaching the boundaries of privacy of the victim. Overreaching the boundaries of privacy of the victim.

Speaker 2:

So the fact that we are now criminalizing placing a tracking device or application on, you know, someone's person or property is huge. There are some exceptions that I think, unfortunately, courts could interpret too broadly to kind of undercut the purpose of this law. But the fact that we have this law and we have organizations like the ones that Alexandria are part of, like Ohio Domestic Violence Network, to be able to attempt to construe those exceptions narrowly and be able to enforce this, is very huge. I think it's a huge step forward, because stalking is definitely one of those elements of the power and control wheel, and so are most of the people doing the stalking of women?

Speaker 1:

are they generally people that know the woman, and is it different if it's just some unknown person who decides to stalk a person?

Speaker 2:

I think alexandria could speak to that, because, yes, there there's definitely, there's a civil stalking protection order where you don't have to be a family or household member, and then, um, it would be different if you're a family or household member. So, if you want to speak to that, alexandria- here's what what I've learned.

Speaker 3:

Stalking is domestic violence when it occurs between family or household members. When it is non family or household members, which which include spouses, former spouses, people related by blood or marriage, people who are not living together but who have a child in common, and people who are living as spouses, people who are cohabiting or who have cohabited within five years. That's the definition of those families who are covered. Now, if you fit outside of that, you may be seeing somebody you're not really dating. There could be stranger stalking that would be under a different statute, but the definition of stalking is going to be the same no matter which statute you look at. Again, I laugh as I'm talking like this because Ohio has a very convoluted set of statutes and each statute addresses potentially a different crime. But everything came out of the of the domestic violence statute.

Speaker 1:

So let's take like a bigger picture, since I you know people are listening in all different countries and states, and since this is a pervasive problem of different ages, different backgrounds, different socioeconomics, it's not, you know what might be common myths that people have. What are some of the basic do's and don'ts for women or children or anyone? You know, elderly people as well, who might be abused by their younger family members of doing if you're ensconced in some perilous situation?

Speaker 2:

One thing I would say and this is kind of speaking a little outside of the box. I don't know if you guys saw like 10 months ago I'm sure a lot of your viewers would have seen that this was trending all over on social media that TikTok did a video where they asked a bunch of women if they would rather be stranded in a forest with a wild bear or with a man and seven out of eight said that they would prefer the bear. And for a number of reasons, just because you know it was predictable, you're either going to get killed by the bear or the bear is going to ignore you. It can't be like someone you love, hurting you, humiliating you, degrading you, just from based on experiences that women have gone through with men. It was a very popular, trending thing and what it made me think of today was, however you feel on the bear versus man controversy, you wouldn't go up in the forest to a bear and hit a bear with a shoe.

Speaker 2:

Don't antagonize If you're in a perilous situation. If you're in the heat of a perilous situation, it is not the time to take a stand. I don't think I'm not saying put your head down. This isn't the 1950s, but you have to come up with a plan, a safety plan. Do not try to takericate yourself from immediate danger and then have time to if you know if you're going to leave. I mean there's and we can get into the myths. There's a myriad of reasons. Women don't leave that they. They decide that that's not the best course of action for their safety or their family or their financial security, and that's a personal choice. But if you are going to leave it, it needs to be a rational, planned out situation, as opposed to antagonizing a dangerous person in the heat of the peril.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that's a very, very important point, like we have information in female only restrooms at the hospital with, you know, 1-800 numbers and resources, because an exit safety plan has to be in place and the time of a woman exiting is the highest risk for, you know, injury and murder.

Speaker 1:

To re assault yes, is the highest risk for injury and murder To re assault yes, yeah, and I'm thinking years ago, one of my physician colleagues so physicians are educated and generally have financial resources they're not necessarily financially constrained as some people in other situations might be who was being abused by her physician spouse and she made her exit plan and, of course, didn't tell anyone, except of course she told me because, um, I am in charge of a big center and have a lot of patients, and, um, the plan was we can't let anyone know or cancel patients or anything else, because we can't let this abuser aware that she's going to be going, and so it was very stealth, and so I think that women need resources in order to make plans to do that without the abuser knowing what.

Speaker 3:

I tell my clients is clients will come in. They want a protection order, they want a divorce. I only represent victims of domestic violence, so I'm very limited in my practice. But I tell them that they need to pull together all their important papers to begin to save money, to create a safety plan, not only only with themselves but, let's say, with a neighbor, so if their abuser is going it's hurting them, they can go by the door and turn on the light or do something to make somebody aware and have all that information. So if they have to leave, they have that ability.

Speaker 3:

The problem becomes when they their behavior is counterintuitive they don't leave. They don't leave because they believe that they'll be killed. If they do leave, they really love him. Whatever the reason is, then you have a higher system, the court court system or the law enforcement system that would say wait a second, if she were that badly abused she would have left. And so that's where the education comes in. It's training every system to understand each of the myths, to understand why women stay, why they go back, why they don't leave in the beginning. But we can't lose sight of the fact that we're here to help them and we need to keep moving them forward. And that means the safety planning, that means being there. It takes a woman usually seven to nine times to get out of a bad situation. So if I were training lawyers I would say be there for them the next time, because the next time they could get out.

Speaker 1:

What about just training for the non-lawyer? You know, the non-social worker, the non-law enforcement person, just someone in the community, like maybe someone listening, who is a church member or is, you know, part of a community group or a mom's group?

Speaker 3:

For a mom's group, for a church group, and then, ashley, you'll be able to talk about that as well. But I would explain the myths. If it were me, I would explain why women leave, why they stay. If it were me, I would explain why women leave, why they stay, and what to look for in the batterer, in the victim, how they respond. That's what I would do. The other thing I would do is talk a little bit about not just the survivor but their children and different ways to look at their children.

Speaker 3:

One thing Ohio has that went into effect is a safe at home. It's addressed confidentiality. If you are a victim of domestic violence, stalking, human trafficking, dating violence and you move to a place where your abuser does not know where you live, you can contact the Ohio Secretary of State's office and you will be given, if you follow the application, you will be given a PO box. That PO box will be used on all public documents and then the Secretary of State will send those documents, whatever it could be service of papers, it could be any kind of mail Then it will be sent to the victim from the Secretary of State's office.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's very interesting.

Speaker 3:

I didn't know that Most states in the United States have it. I don't know around the world it could be Again. So much that's happened in the United States is moving around the world Family justice centers, strangulation, addressing the issue of strangulation so it may be that other countries do have something like that.

Speaker 1:

I don't know. So we'll definitely want that number for at least Ohio Secretary of State to put in our show notes of state to put in our show notes and also any kind of shelters, any, you know 24-7 hotlines. You know that people can reach out to and get that information. Why is strangulation laws different than just any other physical violence law? That's that seems interesting, or different.

Speaker 3:

As a lawyer.

Speaker 3:

every time a client said my husband choked me, I would write it down and call it domestic violence and never think something anything else about it and never look at the danger it poses, because victims can be killed by strangulation even when there are no visible injuries, when there's petechiae and it should be that everyone who encounters a woman who says they've been choked, strangled is what we would say, but every time a victim says that we should advise them to seek medical attention and we need to look at strangulation as the last warning shot before femicide.

Speaker 1:

And if femicide is the woman being killed?

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and then any comments about other situations, like I have women in my practice who have daughters who are like maybe of age, but they're still young, but they're over age 18 and they're in these bad dating situations, abusive situations. And I also have patients who have elderly relatives and they're not happy with how someone else is treating that elderly person, you know, because if they die then there's inheritance or there's other money or there's some other motivation. Are those all under domestic violence as well, or not?

Speaker 3:

If let's say, I abuse my daughter or my daughter abuses me, that's how you would want to. My daughter abuses me? Yes, that is domestic violence because we have a family or household relationship. She was my child, so, yes, that is covered. Children are covered as well. Dating partners are covered now under a recently enacted statute. So we have all that, and the thing is, what we need to do is we need to change the paradigm. We need to begin to talk about domestic violence, dating violence, creating healthy relationships when children are young. The other piece is we need to make significant movement with our juvenile courts, because something I learned that I fought because I said, ah, it can't be true. It's that almost every perpetrator was a victim.

Speaker 1:

Oh, really. So it's like a cycle of violence.

Speaker 3:

It is such a cycle and the goal is how do we break that cycle of violence?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that was one of the things that was really brought home to me in the education that I was doing for my continuing medical education. And, you know, in order to be, you know, completely looking at all aspects, even though we obviously know, biologically men are generally bigger and stronger and can physically overtake women, um, in the vast majority of the situations, there probably are some situations where males are victims of domestic violence, are victims of domestic violence, and I would think that would be even harder on you know, to try to get help for that as a man.

Speaker 3:

Yes, I think it's harder to seek the resources they may need, but I still believe. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I believe that domestic violence is a crime against women.

Speaker 1:

Definitely, strangulation is a crime, sure, sure, but there's also same-sex relationships and absolutely you know parent child or step-parent child, you know, and I think what does get lost is the same sex.

Speaker 3:

You know where talk I? When I talk, I generally use disclaimers that say I speak in terms of the woman being the abused, the male being the perpetrator. I recognize that men can be abused and I recognize that the same dynamics occur between the LGBTQ community. So I recognize that. But it's very hard when you're training or talking. Just talk in terms of he, she or they. It doesn't follow as easily for me.

Speaker 1:

No, I understand, I just wanna make anyone listening that, if anyone is-. We don't wanna minimize that Abused in perilous situations, you know that's obviously not acceptable. And when a woman or a person who's abused fights back for their own, um personal safety, I mean what happens if they're, you know, if they kill their abuser?

Speaker 2:

in terms of that whole aspect, there is a battered women's syndrome defense and then there's also just general self-defense. I mean with battered women's syndrome defense my understanding is that doesn't even have to be in the heat of the moment. With self-defense, you use the when you're defending yourself.

Speaker 2:

The standard is it has to be reasonable for the force that's exerted, as you, for like, example, if someone just I don't know slaps me across the face like, and then they back down, I can't just go grab my gun and shoot him and be like, well, my husband was trying to kill me, like, yes, he committed domestic violence by slapping me across the face, but that wasn't enough force for me to go shoot him in the head and say it was just basic self-defense.

Speaker 2:

But with battered women, syndrome defense, um, and that's a very limited exception. I'm not even sure it's recognized in Ohio. I haven't thought about it since law school but I remember, um, you know, if you're. I mean, like she said, it's usually nine, seven to nine incidences before you leave. I mean, some women are subjected to severe malignant abuse, day after day after day after day, for, you know, 20 years. And if they kill their abuser, even if it's not in the direct heat of the moment, even if it was more excessive than a general self-defense force, they can utilize that to mitigate or be exonerated. Is that accurate?

Speaker 3:

Yes, and now they're looking at calling it. They haven't changed the statute. There is a full statute. Instead of the battered women's syndrome defense, it's the battered women's syndrome defense, it's the battered women's experiences. But I want to go one step further and talk about the, the medical community and what they can do. Yes, that's every time a survivor comes in, even if they say I fell over a fence or I knocked myself in the eye, under Ohio law they have an obligation to note in that patient's records known or suspected abuse. That also means that I can say my patient's injuries are inconsistent with what that victim says. I suspect violence perpetrated, even if they don't say it. So that creates a record. So in the event he kills her or she kills him, then that hopefully will be able to come out and show that maybe she was a survivor, a victim of domestic violence. That's really important to be able to bring up, and so we depend on the medical community.

Speaker 1:

Well, my perspective and we do have a lot of physicians and nurses who listen to our podcast, because we do have some CME podcasts For any of you physicians from season one where you can listen and get free CME. This is not one today, but I teach my residents and fellows in the field of women's health, which I specialize in, that when we see a woman and their partner insist on physically being present for the whole exam, that sets off all sorts of alarms and we pretty much have a policy where we say part of the time, especially the exam part, we don't allow that person to be in the room, and that's when sometimes things are discovered.

Speaker 3:

And you also ask women because in 1994, that's what we had put in the statute that medical professionals will ask. You know that domestic violence is very dangerous and they should be asking and separating the parties and, as part of that, what's come out of that is are you safe in your home?

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, and we do have nurses generally routinely ask those questions and certainly I think emergency room personnel that sees fractures and lacerations will ask those questions. When my middle son graduated from high school and we were having this graduation party I was filming holding a camcorder and a bee bit me in the ear and so I went like this to get the bee and I just like lacerated my whole forehead and everybody was having so much fun at the party I had to like drive myself to the emergency room to go get stitches. And so like they immediately were thinking like you know, asking me questions about that, and I said no, it's just my own, my own idiocy. And then they said don't let the door hit you on the way out. Like OK, gee, thanks. Like I was clumsy, but it really. You know, domestic violence is very serious, it can be very deadly, it's very pervasive.

Speaker 1:

We've only just touched on just some of the topics. We have so much more to go into about civil and criminal in the future, and you know what about with children and custody, and there's so many more issues that we can get into and maybe we should have you ladies back on another episode. I just wanted to give you each a chance to give a little wrap-up statement and anything where people can contact you, or resources or websites or anything else that you would like to to say. I'll start with you, ashley.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so there are so many more facets. We didn't get into the other change to the law that came into effect on March 20th, so maybe we can do another episode where we touch on that, because some of the penalties for third-time offenders were enhanced, especially for the victim being pregnant or the fetus being harmed. So that's another positive step in the right direction. But we have ways to go to get to where we need to be to start to ameliorate this undeniable crisis, and I would just say that the safety plan is key. Getting your resources in order and learning about government assistance.

Speaker 2:

That's something that most women probably have never seen in their life, probably never thought about, but you know when you're leaving. You know in 99% of cases that's like universal statistics on all these domestic violence websites there's financial abuse. So the woman, even if she had a career, that she left to stay home with the kids, even if she has a degree, even if she is working, you know sometimes the resources are not provided to her, they're not given, so she's literally left with nothing. So just learning how to navigate all that prior to exiting to make your situation more sustainable for yourself and your children and just be safe, and I think Alexandra will be able to provide a lot of the immediate resources to contact. But I would just say, the more you can plan in advance, before you extricate yourself from the situation, the better off you'll be and the safer you'll be when you do leave and I would encourage all of our listeners.

Speaker 1:

If you didn't hear the podcast that I did with an attorney who's an expert in domestic law, ava Saulnier, on divorce and getting your financial assets and papers and all of that in order, that's an excellent one to go back to listen to and she's like a new mom now. That's exciting listen to and she's like a new mom now. That's exciting. So, alexandria, let's have your final wrap-up points and where people can contact you if they might need your services.

Speaker 3:

Well, I want to start by saying that in the area of domestic violence, ohio has Ohio has one of the better statutes. The problem is not as much our is not our statute, it's the enforcement of our statute by the professionals who have to enforce it. That's where we have the biggest problem. Additionally, one of the two of the issues that really need to come up is creating expert witnesses to come to court to explain domestic violence to court systems before they award custody and, as Ashley talked about, we really need to focus. You mentioned financial abuse. We don't have in our state.

Speaker 3:

There are only a few states that have it coercive, controlling behavior codified in their laws. I know the UK has it. I can't remember other countries have it. We don't. Now every victim, at least in the United States and probably around the world. There are law offices for low-income clients, like in the United States. We have the Legal Services Corporation and we have various legal aids that address domestic violence. We have each state has a coalition, a statewide coalition. Ours is the Ohio Domestic Violence Network and, as we've trained medical professionals and forensic nurses about domestic violence and strangulation, they are situated in various hospitals. But the last thing I wanted to say is victims need to know they are not alone. And if you are not a victim but you have somebody in your family, the biggest thing is be there, even if it becomes frustrating because they go back, because you never know that the next time you open your heart to them they won't get out, and if you fail to open your heart they could be dead.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you so much, Ashley and Alexandria, for joining me on this special Speaking of Women's Health podcast on domestic violence. Please check our show notes for these resources and thank you to our listeners for tuning in to Speaking of Women's Health, and we're so grateful for your support and we hope that you'll support the podcast, share it with others, leave us a five-star rating and to catch all the latest from Speaking of Women's Health, please subscribe. Hit the subscribe or follow button on Apple Podcasts Spotify TuneIn wherever you listen so you won't miss any future episodes. Thanks for listening. Remember, be strong, be healthy and be in charge.

Speaker 3:

We agree.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Holly L. Thacker, MD

Host
Head Shot

Sylvia Morrison

Co-host
Head Shot

Leigh Klekar

Producer