If signed by Governor Roy Cooper, then the bill would become law.

Because of a 40-year-old ruling by a Court of Appeals, North Carolina was the only state in the U.S. where continuing to have sex with an individual after they had withdrawn consent was not a crime.

Under the new bill, sex with a person against their will would be defined as “either (1) without consent of the other person or (2) after consent is revoked by the other person, in a manner that would cause a reasonable person to believe consent is revoked.”

Sex with a “mentally incapacitated” person counted as rape under the law, but court precedent said the laws did not apply if the person had “caused the incapacitation through drinking or drug use” of their own volition.

In other words, if the victim of a sexual assault had been drinking or using drugs, they were not legally mentally incapacitated.

Clearer parameters are set within the new bill, which redefines being mentally incapacitated as “a victim who due to any act is rendered substantially incapable of either appraising the nature of his or her conduct or resisting the act of vaginal intercourse or a sexual act.”

“There’s just an enormous amount of benefit for all of these things,” said District Attorney Ashley Welch. “This would allow us to more aggressively go after someone who engages in non-consensual [activity].”

Data published in The News & Observer showed that there were only 247 convictions for sexual assault in four and a half years, although 1,019 people were charged.

Unclear consent laws often led juries into blaming the victim, often letting the defendant go free.

“All a defense lawyer has to do is have one juror buy into victim-blaming, and the case is gone,” Lieutenant John Somerindyke of the Fayetteville Police Department told the Carolina Public Press.

Other measures in the bill require any who is aware of the sexual abuse of a minor to report the case to authorities, prohibits the distribution of drinks that are dosed or spiked and requires that school personnel by trained about sex trafficking and child sex abuse.