I think this has been my most important conversation yet, and my hope is that you will first and foremost; CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATOR/SENATOR and urge this bill to be passed (HB 272-OM'S LAW) and secondly, share this with your friends and family and ask them to do the same. So many women and children are being abused and don't say anything because it is almost always made worse for them. "Getting out" or "Walking away" isn't that easy. No one should have to live a nightmare like Leah did for YEARS. She is my friend. I have other friends facing the same consequences she did, as a result of legal abuse and uneducated "experts" who have no expertise in domestic violence or child abuse. Please message the senator in your county and urge HB272, "Om's Law," to PASS. We have one week. This goes to the senate last week of February.
YOUR LEGISLATORhttps://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12u3w5Fxb9_upRC2kWWlkcNjK2MnzYYfDsfvJ4CZp6Qc/edit?usp=sharing
TO CONTACT YOUR SENATOR: https://senate.utah.gov/contact
Power and Control Wheel
https://www.thehotline.org/identify-abuse/power-and-control/ Utah
Domestic Violence Coalition
https://udvc.org/
The Safe Child Project
https://thepolicyproject.org
National Safe Parents Org
https://www.nationalsafeparents.org/kaydens-law.html
House Bill 272 Bill language: https://le.utah.gov/~2024/bills/static/HB0272.html
Watch proceedings: https://le.utah.gov/FloorCalendars/
House Floor reading and vote 22:18 Cutler’s presentation https://le.utah.gov/av/floorArchive.jsp?markerID=126353
Om's Law: Keeping Children Safe From Family Violence
Utah House Bill 272
House Judiciary Committee Testimony
February 8, 2024 
 
My name is Leah Moses, I’m Om’s mom.
 
9 months ago, my 16-year-old son Om was murdered by his father on Mother’s Day weekend during court-ordered parent time. Om was brutally shot twice in the back and once in his face by a 45 caliber handgun bought from a pawn shop on the same State Street in Salt Lake City as the courthouse where I fought in family court for 14 years trying to keep my children safe. I supplied the courts with extensive evidence of Om's father's abuse and the risk to my children, but it fell on deaf ears.
 
This morning it is my impossible task to represent thousands of protective parents and children who share their own, but similar experiences living in violence and who are not safe to speak out because they will be abused, tonight, tomorrow, and this weekend.
 
I mothered in violence for the entirety of Om’s 17 years. I never imagined I’d be safe enough to speak the truth publicly, but now I’m no longer hunted.  My son stood in the face of lethal danger and freed me. And now I will speak for all of us, in his honor.
 
Om was conceived in the violence of rape and executed as a hostage in the violence of control. Despite years of begging for relief, he was powerless to escape, trapped in childhood by a psychotic parent and ultimately trapped and killed in an enclosed office. Throughout the litigation, even as a young child, Om asked me when the court would allow him to speak. They never did.
 
My ex-spouse was always abusive. I’m not sure during which of the countless early rapes Om was conceived, whether it was when I was shoved in a closet, suffocated in the front seat of a car, drugged and abandoned on a couch or forced under a blanket in a crowded room, but when I was dropped off to planned parenthood with an ultimatum between an abortion or my life, I gave up the life I knew to keep the pregnancy.  I chose Om, and our life as prisoners began.
 
He was a 6’3” 280lb PhD psychologist. In public, he maintained a professional appearance using the guise of a model parent, the persona of an enlightened religious yoga instructor, intent on healing sexual trauma, but in private he perpetuated a lifetime of relentless, systematic rape and calculated psychological control. This is what countless abusers do, but court professionals sometimes have little understanding about how abusers operate, a