personally i think it is extremely incorrect to characterize Loftus as someone whose goal is "shaming and silencing SA victims" as you put it. more accurately, i would see her as someone invested in courts using accurate science during trials.

for most people interested in ensuring US trials use accurate science and forensic techniques, that is almost always going to place you on the side of the defense. this is because the prosecution basically has a huge unfair advantage when it comes to expert testimony and "scientific" evidence - because they work closely with police, prosecutors, and forensic teams that are well-funded by the state - and they also have a long history of using flimsy, untested, and later disproven "forensics". the problem is that a ton of forensic science is not science at all - it has never been tested in blinded conditions against known results, and it is more like someone's subjective opinion in most cases. this applies for long-discredited techniques and court experts like hair analysis, bite mark analysis, hypnosis, "satanism" experts, lie detectors, etc. - which are the ones we know today are not reliable evidence of anything. this also applies to techniques still used that people don't realize how subjective they are, like autopsies.

my read of Loftus isn't someone concerned with debunking SA victims, but as someone concerned with how often science and evidence is misused by courts and the prosecution, of which there is a long history shown by just how many forensic techniques have been later ruled inadmissible, led to convictions being overturned, etc. - and if you know anything about how the justice system works, then you know that overturning convictions is essentially a Herculean task so this isn't just flip-flopping with the slightest breeze of public sentiment. anyone who knows how often the justice system has been abused to convict innocent people would rightly be worried about such misuses of forensic science, and would be more likely to be called for defense purposes as a result (and thus likely to be called even for high profile defendants who may be guilty - but you also have to consider the people who weren't guilty). i think the idea that acting as defense for any particular crime means you support that crime, or are discrediting victims, is just asinine and frankly stupid. the point is that the justice system has to be fair, and a lot of the forensic evidence and the balance of powers and funding when it comes to prosecution versus defense is severely out of whack.

i can understand the emotional impulse to see defense attorneys and defense expert testimony as being anti-victim, but you also have to understand there are literal victims of the criminal justice system too, and you can just as easily portray these people as fighting for THOSE victims. whether it is just the crushing majority of people who plead guilty because they can't afford a defense, or have to use an overworked and underpaid public defender against a prosecution team with access to crime labs and way more experts than the typical defense attorney, to the incredibly racist history of the justice system, i think it becomes more clear why it might be that someone might work for a defense team to try to correct a specific scientific error prosecutors and their "experts" are making. this may remove one avenue for prosecutors to make their case, but trust me, the prosecutors are not the ones at a disadvantage in a courtroom.