{"id":177367,"date":"2019-10-08T00:03:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T05:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/10\/08\/ive-made-jokes-about-the-home-root-canal-kit-but\/"},"modified":"2019-10-08T00:03:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-08T05:03:00","slug":"ive-made-jokes-about-the-home-root-canal-kit-but","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/10\/08\/ive-made-jokes-about-the-home-root-canal-kit-but\/","title":{"rendered":"I’ve Made Jokes about the Home Root Canal Kit, But\u2026\u2026\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
The folks hawking an at-home rape kit<\/a> have exceeded even my tasteless sense of humor, and God help them, they are serious:<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

It should perhaps come as no surprise that in the post-Theranos (and mid-Tia<\/a>) world, someone, somewhere would attempt to \u201cdisrupt\u201d the rape kit. The MeToo company, a start-up based in Brooklyn and created by Madison Campbell, has created \u2014 in theory \u2014 the first at-home, self-managed forensic exam, intended to be used by survivors of sexual assault. Campbell calls her product the \u201cMeToo kit<\/a>,\u201d and its slogan adopts the ethos and language of its namesake movement: \u201cYour experience. Your kit. Your story. Your life. Your choice.\u201d <\/p>\n

But many in the sexual-assault advocacy and legal professional communities have voiced concerns about the MeToo kit\u2019s viability in the criminal justice system. At the end of August, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel sent the company a cease-and-desist letter<\/a>, accusing it of violating several sections of Michigan\u2019s Consumer Protection Act. Nessel stated, \u201cThis company is shamelessly trying to take financial advantage of the \u2018Me Too\u2019 movement by luring victims into thinking that an at-home-do-it-yourself sexual assault kit will stand up in court \u2026 Career prosecutors know that evidence collected in this way would not provide the necessary chain of custody.\u201d This week, New York attorney general Letitia James joined Nessel\u2019s call for Campbell to cease and desist<\/a>, stating her concern that the MeToo kits would \u201cdeter individuals from seeking professional care.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ebony Tucker, advocacy director of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence<\/a>, echoes the attorney generals\u2019 concerns. \u201cWhen evidence is taken as part of a forensic exam in a rape case, there has to be a very clear order of who came into contact with the evidence: who had access to touch it, see it, know where it was,\u201d she says. These measures are taken in order to ensure evidence isn\u2019t tampered with, and to prevent that claim from being made in court. Done at home, by oneself, there would be countless opportunities to contaminate evidence \u2014 and any defense attorney would know that.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The entire concept becomes even more horrifyingly clueless as you read further down in the story.<\/p>\n

The whole “Disruption” culture is really a complete sh%$ show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The folks hawking an at-home rape kit have exceeded even my tasteless sense of humor, and God help them, they are serious: It should perhaps come as no surprise that in the post-Theranos (and mid-Tia) world, someone, somewhere would attempt to \u201cdisrupt\u201d the rape kit. The MeToo company, a start-up based in Brooklyn and created …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[365,364,407,448,406,582,403],"class_list":["post-177367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-business","tag-evil","tag-justice","tag-sex","tag-stupid","tag-violence","tag-wanker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177367"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}