Let there be no mistake, the police failed miserably in addressing the backlog of rape kits. It is a national disgrace. But that wasn’t the problem Madison Campbell sought to fix.
“We built our system to basically be as advanced as humanly possible,” says Campbell, who said she studied epidemiology in college before dropping out her senior year to escape an “extremely awful” ex-boyfriend. “Our advice is to go to the hospital to get a full rape kit, but if you’re not comfortable with that, we believe that if you follow our instructions, it’s your next best shot.”
Campbell’s “tech” start-up, Leda Health, makes and markets do-it-yourself rape kits for women who hate the idea of being poked, swabbed and prodded at the hospital on the “worst night of her life.” What’s wrong with that?
In a May cease and desist order, [NY Attorney General Letitia] James demanded that Leda Health, which Campbell started in 2019, pay half a million dollars for “misleading” victims into thinking that its services are “a substitute for professional medical care.” Pennsylvania’s top lawyer, Michelle Henry, also hit Campbell with a similar demand that month—shut down or else.
The Leda rape kits open its instructions with “We think you are brave, and we believe you,” heartwarming words to women who fear they will not be believed or treated with the respect they believe they are due as the victims of rape. Unfortunately, believing isn’t the same as producing rape kits that are either useful in identifying perpetrators or being admitted into evidence in court.
But Campbell says: What other option is there? The government, she says, does a poor job of getting justice for rape victims—only an estimated two percent of sexual assault perpetrators are convicted of felonies nationwide. And to obtain justice, victims usually have to undergo an in-person exam, in which a medical professional swabs, photographs, and prods their genitals. Even if a survivor goes through that “traumatizing” experience, Campbell says, there’s still a chance the evidence could be thrown out by a judge.
“We cannot guarantee the admissibility of our kits because you cannot guarantee the admissibility of any kit,” she told me. “All we want is to be held to the same standard of any other piece of evidence.”
But the crux of Campbell’s defense is that the government is seeking to violate her First Amendment right to free speech.
“I have a First Amendment right for myself and my company to say that the criminal justice system as it currently works does not work for everyone,” Campbell tells me over Zoom.
Her lawyer Alex Little, who represented pop star Kesha in her sexual assault lawsuit against her former producer Dr. Luke, tells me that all the components of a Leda Health kit are “entirely legal,” like tamper-proof tape, a ballpoint pen, and cotton swabs.
“You can go to CVS, and you can get either of those things immediately,” he tells me. “None of those things are illegal.”
The challenges to Leda Health have nothing to do with Campbell’s criticism of the criminal justice system, per se. Criticize all you want. We’ll make more. Nor is the problem that the items contained in her home rape kit are illegal to possess, either individually or in the aggregate. The problem is that she’s selling a product that purports to be a substitute for rape victims who don’t want to go to the hospital and endure the normal SANE procedure.
Users are encouraged to download the Leda Health app so that they can connect over video to a SANE-certified nurse as they collect their evidence. The company employs eight of these professional sexual-assault examiners, all of whom are prepared to later testify in court. A leaflet in the Leda Health kit tells victims “it is always best that you go to a hospital.” But Campbell tells me “the majority” of rape victims don’t want to do that—nearly 70 percent of sexual assaults are never even reported to the police.
“We’re not saying that we have a gold standard here,” she says with a shrug. “We’re just saying that not all survivors want to go to the police or hospital. And I know that because I didn’t want to.”
It’s entirely understandable why a woman who has just been raped wouldn’t want some random person in a hospital poking and swabbing her vagina. But is selling an inadmissible palliative alternative as if it was even a somewhat legitimate rape kit a feminist #MeToo stroke of brilliance or an opportunistic fraud playing on the emotions of the vulnerable? Consider the case of Bunny:
She tells me she hopes that Leda Health might be able to run tests on a condom that she found inside of herself the morning after the attack. She says she knows the kit might not help catch her attacker, because the evidence can’t be put into CODIS, but that “Leda is the only one who really gives a shit.”
“I don’t care if it’s supported in a court of law or whatever,” she says. “It is justice. Someone cared.”
Is it justice, or is it a scam to take advantage of women who prefer comfort and validation over anything that could potentially serve any useful purpose? Is Madison Campbell a feminist icon or the next iteration of Elizabeth Holmes?
*Tuesday Talk rules apply.
