State Efforts

Monumental Rape by Fraud Bill Passes in Texas!

Kudos to Eve Wiley from Dallas TX, who inspired a precedent setting sexual assault by fraud bill, approved by legislators in Austin yesterday! Speaking about the offender, Representative Stephanie Klick, the bill’s sponsor in the House of Representatives, said, “This is a person who you really trust and they betrayed you.” She was referring to the case of Wiley’s mother who had been duped by Dr. Kim McMorries. 

As seen on ABC’s 20/20, McMorries artificially inseminated her with his own sperm instead of that which she selected from donor #106. Wiley researched the donor database and learned who donor #106 was. She reached out to him and they formed a close knit, loving bond, only to find that he was not her father after all…… McMorries was.

Klick said this case “would be considered a rape because you are doing something without consent.”

While Klick’s comments were directed to the specific type of fraud committed by McMorries, her concept on the illegality of being defrauded of your sexual autonomy rings true for every single case of sexual assault by deception or impersonation.

A shot heard ’round the world?

Senate Bill 1259 demonstrates the overall problem with sexual assault laws in Texas. Texas has a provision about consent in their penal code. Section 1.07-19 clearly states “Consent is not effective if induced by force, threat or fraud.” But in case after case, when victims of sexual assault by fraud bring their claims to the police, they are told consent applies in theft but not in sexual assault. In fact a police Sergeant in Ft. Worth stated, “Consent is not an element of rape in Texas.” (The status of consent in each state and territory of the US is described in “Your Consent – The Key to Conquering Sexual Assault.”)

Texas is not alone in their failure to recognize or apply consent properly. As described in the TEDx Talk, “When YES Means NO – The Truth about Consent,” the recent Bill Cosby conviction demonstrated Pennsylvania’s failure to define consent. And even with the acquittal of Donald Grant Ward in Indiana, who admitted to defrauding a woman for sex, lawmakers were unable to pass a bill to recognize his conduct as a crime.

Hopefully, this Texas bill, once signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott, will serve as a launching pad to raise awareness about the use of fraud in sexual conduct and insure that anyone who uses deception to violate another person’s reproductive organs, is a criminal. Meanwhile, all nonconsensual sex is a crime, whether the state recognizes it or not!

####

Want CONSENT clearly defined in your state?