When the Harvey Weinstein jurors asked New York Judge James Burke for the definition for consent, he said "Use your commonsense." When the Cosby jurors asked the judge the same question in Pennsylvania, he gave the same answer. California bases consent on the "Positive Cooperation" of the victim. So if the victim complies because they're too terrified to resist, the accused goes free!

The European Union recently failed to include Rape in their directive on violence against women because they could not agree on consent! 

NO STATE OR JURISDICTION ACROSS THE US correctly defines the noun consent in their penal laws. 

Consent is the bedrock concept for rape, sexual assault, sex trafficking, domestic violence, coercive control, stealthing, posting deepfakes and nonconsensual imagery, a woman's reproductive rights, and more!

Consent is an unenforceable human right. We must make it an enforceable civil right!

The 14th Amendment of the US Constitution grants everyone equal protection under the law. But we can't provide equal protection when the very word determining guilt or innocence changes from one jury to the next. As an example, consent appears 162 times in NY State's penal code, yet each jury is instructed to create its own definition. This outrageous failure turns our justice system's sex crime prosecutions into a crapshoot! 

The Consent Awareness Network (CAN) is fighting to change penal laws across the US and beyond. We have successfully introduced bills in NY State and we succeeded getting an amendment passed in the federal House of Representatives; but the US Senate failed to back our amendment.

With the support of Cosby survivor, Stacey Pinkerton, we succeeded in getting the definition for consent introduced in HB #1141, in the state of Arkansas and we are working on new bills in several additional locations.

We are not giving up the fight! We need your help!

Every jurisdiction across the US and around the world needs to correctly define the noun "consent" as "freely given, knowledgeable and Informed agreement, by a person with the capacity to reason." Doing so prevents sexual predators from using malicious influence like force, fear, fraud, coercion, intimidation, surprise, and exploitation of their victim's incapacity. 

CAN's Consent Model is supported by Canon Law, Voting Rights Law, Model Penal Code, Nuremberg Code, and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Malicious influence by the offender determines whether consent took place or not, but that is not what our laws say.

76% of our states give no definition for consent. The other 24% blame the victim with "Yes Means Yes," or "No Means No" nonsense. In the State of New York, "Yes Means Yes" is applied in education law, but "No Means No" is applied in penal law. Victims can say "Yes" or comply because they're coerced to do so. They can be too terrorized to say "No." 

We need our laws to get "consent" right and stop blaming victims for their own victimization! 

Please tell legislators how important correctly defining CONSENT is to you by:

• Signing our petition,
• Sharing it with everyone you know, 
• Pitching in a few dollars to this petition to amplify your demand for change!

Getting bills passed in one jurisdiction helps every jurisdiction everywhere.

YOUR VOICE can truly help make the world a safer place!

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We the undersigned support enacting NY State Legislative Bills #A1140 and #S5521, the definition for consent passed by the US House of Representatives in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which regulates military law, and was introduced in Arkansas as HB #1141.

“Consent means freely given, knowledgeable and informed agreement by a person with the capacity to reason."

Failure to correctly define consent by law hampers justice, contributes to victim blaming, and enables sexual predators to exploit legal-loopholes. Defining consent properly will insure equal protection under the law for victims of rape, sexual assault, sex trafficking, revenge porn, domestic violence, and all additional crimes where consent is required by law.