Saying that abusers are less than human or that there is some inherent pathology to them makes the world less safe. Because if abusers are less than human, you can’t acknowledge that your beloved best friend is neglecting his children. You can’t acknowledge that your mother emotionally abused you. You can’t take the accusation of domestic violence against your role model seriously. You can’t acknowledge that your girlfriend is financially abusing you. Because they are human, and you know them, so they can’t be unhuman abusers. And they aren’t unhuman. But they are abusers.
A woman with no mental illness can come home and hit her children. A man with a perfectly healthy childhood can manipulate his employees into working overtime with no pay. A woman who is respected in her community can commit a rape. A man who treats most patients perfectly can be medically abusive to others.
Abuse is not a pathology. It is not a function of inhumanity. It is not inevitable. If it was any of those things, it would be morally neutral in the way that a hurricane is, something that you just have to get potential victims out of the way of. Instead, abuse is an action or set of actions that the person chooses to take, and could have chosen not to take. That’s the whole reason that abuse is a moral wrong: that abusers could have chosen otherwise.
There is nothing separating you, the person reading this, from being an abuser, except for the choice to be careful and kind to others. Not if you were abused. Not if you have little societal power. Not if you just really don’t want to be one. There is no immutable fact about you that makes you immune to abusing others. There are only the choices that you make in how you interact with other human beings.
Anyone can choose to be an abuser. Anyone can choose not to be one.