I am a survivor, and I work with survivors. So when Rep. Ellen Read’s recent op-ed about House Bill 1633 starts playing politics with survivors’ fear, it’s time to have a frank conversation about what’s actually going on.
The op-ed framing this bill as simply “handing survivors a card” is doing what political rhetoric does best. It takes something complicated and sands it down until it’s unrecognizable. The reality is that HB 1633, as written, had serious problems. Not invented problems. Not political problems. Problems identified by the people who actually do this work: the nurses who administer rape kits, the prosecutors who have to use that evidence in court, the advocates who sit with survivors at 2 a.m. and the Department of Justice.
When those voices raised concerns, they weren’t dismissed in good faith. They were dismissed as opposition.
What the op-ed doesn’t tell you is that HB 1633 would have actually narrowed who counts as a survivor under the law. That means children. Nonverbal survivors. Some of the most vulnerable people this bill claimed to protect would have lost protections they currently have. It also would have changed how forensic evidence is collected in ways that medical experts say don’t work, potentially leaving hospitals unable to even obtain compliant kits.
There’s something else worth clarifying, because it’s been muddied in this debate. A rape kit and toxicology testing for suspected drugging are not the same thing. They are separate processes with different purposes and different timelines. Conflating them doesn’t help survivors understand their options. It does the opposite.
Claiming this bill “only” informed survivors of their rights was never true. And framing it as a simple moral choice, either you support this bill or you support keeping survivors in the dark, is not just inaccurate. It’s harmful.
Here’s what concerns me most as a survivor: when we tell people the system is failing them, we had better be right. Because a survivor who believes they will be turned away may not go at all. That is not a theoretical harm. That is a real one. Rhetoric that frightens survivors away from care in order to win a policy argument is not advocacy. It is the opposite.
The bill’s supporters framed every concern as obstruction and every critic as an enemy of survivors. But the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence is not the enemy of survivors. SANEs are not the enemy of survivors. Prosecutors who need evidence that holds up in court are not the enemy of survivors.
If there are gaps in how survivors are informed of their rights, and there may well be, then let’s fix them. Precisely, carefully, in collaboration with the people doing the work. Not with legislation that creates new problems in the name of solving old ones, and not with a communications strategy that treats survivors’ fear as a political tool.
Survivors in New Hampshire: if you go to an emergency room after an assault, you will not be turned away. Help is there. Please go.
That message should not be controversial. It should be the whole point.
Rep. Alicia Gregg serves Hillsborough District 7 and represents the city of Nashua.