Says columnist Judy Raymond in her Sunday Express article today:
The DNA Bill had about as much respect for civil rights. It needed a special majority, because, Mr Volney said breezily, “It may be arguable that the mandatory taking of a sample infringes bodily integrity and privacy.”
Like the State of Emergency, another of the Government’s anti-crime measures, this [Bill] will most definitely infringe on citizens’ constitutional rights: it will allow the police, doctors and nurses to take samples of body tissue from people without their consent.
“It may appear draconian,” he conceded. It does. It also appears horrifying, stupid, sexist and useless.
The DNA Bill will authorise the State to assault people who are not only innocent of any crime, but have also just been the victims of one of the worst kinds of crime.
How does the Government justify this additional, official violation of rape victims?
By making out that they are liars.
The Minister of Justice opined—without a shred of evidence—that it was “often a fact that individuals are falsely accused of committing sexual crimes.”
Adding yet another insult to further injury, he explained that “alleged” victims of rape are given to changing their minds about giving evidence because of “embarrassment”—thus trivialising the ordeal of both the attack itself and the trial.
Women MPs—including the Prime Minister, the champion of her sex—sat quiet through this jaw-dropping misogyny.
If this measure became law, rape victims would have to undergo further trauma and humiliation, possibly under the impression that they were being given a bona fide medical examination. Gathering such samples is a lengthy process, by the way, not a quick swab; it can take hours.
The Minister said there had been consultation over the bill; he didn’t say whether doctors had been asked if they were willing to carry out invasive procedures on women without their informed consent, contrary to their professional ethics.
Some readers may miss the point. The problem is not DNA legislation in and of itself. In fact, law enforcement can do with this kind of help as they seek to establish within a shadow of doubt the innocence or guilt of a suspected perpetrator.
The issue here is with the invasiveness of the measures to be imposed. Ms. Raymond breaks these issues down very, very clearly beyond the extract of the article above.
More and more, our citizens’ rights are being infringed by the knee-jerk imposition of draconian measures that leave broad avenues for the gravest of abuses.
One such as this is one against which we all must rail.
