Last week, a woman from SAFEHOME came to De Soto High School and talked to my Family Studies class about healthy and unhealthy relationships.

SAFEHOME is an organization to provide support for survivors of domestic violence.

I was excited to hear what she had to say because information about things like domestic violence is interesting to me.

She explained what domestic violence was and about the forms of abuse and what the warning signs of domestic violence are.

According to the United States Department of Justice, domestic violence is “a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner.”

Everything she talked about was a real eye opener for me about how real and dangerous domestic violence is.

She told us about some of the cases she had seen. Cases from emotional abuse, sexual abuse and physical abuse. She gave us examples of what physical abuse includes, such as punching, kicking, slapping and more.

All these stories she had were interesting but also terrifying. All I could think was “How could someone do that to another person, another human being?”

But one act of physical abuse really stuck out to me; strangulation.

The Nevada Legislature defined strangulation as “intentionally impeding the normal breathing or circulation of the blood by applying pressure on the throat or neck, or by blocking the nose or mouth of another person in a manner that creates a risk of death or substantial bodily harm.”

Strangulation is also commonly misnamed choking, and is one of the most common forms of physical abuse.

Strangulation is a scary thing that people have fears about, just as others would be scared of a spider or snake.

Thirty-eights out of 50 states have made strangulation a felony.

Year after year, a bill goes through the Kansas legislature to make strangulation a felony, but fails to turn into law.

In the state of Kansas, strangulation is not a felony, it is a misdemeanor.

This made me mad. Something as dangerous as strangulation should not be dealt with so lightly; it’s something there should be a punishment for.

There is a lack of punishment for this misdemeanor, so the victim of this type of abuse is not safe from their attacker and allows strangulation to happen over and over again, becoming more dangerous and detrimental to the victim each time.

Strangulation is a very serious and dangerous matter, so it should become a felony and there is no reason for it not to be.