Over at Dailykos, there’s an uncomfortably frank post about one family’s experience with domestic violence, and it’s heartbreaking.

Last night my 12 year old granddaughter, small and skinny and maybe 70 lbs. in full winter gear and soaking wet, flung herself onto the back of a man that she’s known most of her life, a man she loved and trusted, and fought like a tiger in a death match to keep him from beating her mother to death. She bit him, pulled out chunks of his hair and beat him about the face with sharp little fists until her knuckles were bloody and his face was bruised and swollen. When that failed, she broke the broom and began beating him with the handle. Her step-father was so drunk, so enraged and so focused on beating her mother to death that I doubt he even felt it.

Thank God.

Because if he had noticed her through the haze of alcohol and adrenaline pumping through his body, he might have turned on my granddaughter and crushed her tender young bones in his fury.

The parents are staying together, even though the marriage is over because “because of the . . . economy and the fact that neither one of them have the education or training to do anything that would benefit them monetarily, they are trapped like rats in a box full of poverty.” The economy is putting greater stress on families, and meanwhile, approximately 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States.

When I was organizing in Wisconsin, there was a woman who was getting battered by her husband who stayed with him because she had no health care benefits. She has a persistent condition that left her few options, and so she would be battered, and then she would go to the hospital.

No one should have to remain in abusive relationships because of economic factors (and yes, having health care benefits lies under this heading.) It’s the ugly elephant in the room. Thankfully, the health care reform bill outlaws treating domestic violence as a pre-existing condition, but we need to do more. Particularly in immigrant communities, where victims of domestic violence are afraid to step forward, for fear of being blamed and for fear of being doubly punished, we need stronger laws to protect families.

– Caroline