I’m always a little wary about blanket domestic abuse laws. I live in Connecticut and there is a certain domestic abuse law that exists in many states but CT deliberately has not adopted it for very good reasons. The law basically states that if police are called to a scene of a domestic disturbance and a person accuses a domestic partner of abuse, the police must take the accused into custody, even if no charges stick. On the face of it, this seems like a pretty good law. However, CT deliberately has not adopted it because often an abused person may fight back, even a little bit. If someone, man or woman, accuses his/her domestic partner of physically harming them, the police must take them into custody. This means that if a man beats his wife on a regular basis, but in this instance she defended herself, then he can accuse her of abuse and she would be arrested, even if she also accuses him of abuse and he is also arrested.
It is true that the majority of physical abusers are men, but in truth, I feel like it may be a much smaller majority than we know since so few men report being physically abused by their female partners and those who are are rarely taken seriously. There are too many factors to consider with a law like Clare’s Law. What if the man was deemed abusive because he stopped his female partner from doing something that potentially harmed himself, others or even herself, and in the process he hurt her? For example, if she was beating her children and he pulled her away from the kids. Depending on how roughly he did it, he could cause some physical harm to her, and thus be labelled an abuser even though he only hurt her because he was protecting her children. What if she flew at him, fists flying, and he grabbed her arms to stop her and in the process bruised her? It hardly makes sense to label him an abuser in these situations, but he probably would be. Hell, even totally innocuous incidents can be labelled as abuse if spun correctly. My boyfriend once accidentally gave me a fat lip because he brought his head up when I was leaning over him. Is it abuse? No. Might it seem like abuse? Yes.
So, in summation, no, I do not think that is a good law.