Canada to Criminalise Smacking

The Suburban from Quebec, Canada reports on the passing of an Anti-Smacking bill.

"Recently, the Senate passed a bill that will eliminate the section of our criminal code that allows the use of “reasonable” force in order to correct a child’s behaviour. In the media it’s been dubbed the anti-spanking law and judging from the comments on websites that are reporting this development, many Canadians are livid about it.

I’ve read comments saying if the bill becomes law it will be a waste of government resources and will lead to a generation of wild children with no respect for authority. More than a few people seem to think this bill is over-the-top government interference and that spanking is an acceptable, non-abusive disciplinary tool. Some lawyers warned the Senate about a possible onslaught of criminal prosecutions that would label competent parents as child abusers.

I believe there is a difference between hitting a child in a controlled manner as a predictable consequence to unacceptable behaviour and letting loose on a child out of rage. Perhaps it’s because I’m old enough to have grown up at a time when getting spanked was an ordinary, though exceedingly unpleasant, part of childhood...."

Click here for the entire article

Poland: Hitting children is bad, Smacking is not

from www.polskieradio.pl 02/06/2008

The majority of Poles are in favour of a legal ban on hitting children, but at the same time they don't see anything wrong in an occasional smack, a poll published in Rzeczpospolita reveals.

The daily writes that the shocking news of child abuse that have recently shaken Polish public opinion and the government's declarations that spanking children will be prohibited, have little influence over parents' convictions. The daily reminds that in 1990 the Council of Europe demanded that Poland introduce relevant regulations to Polish law.

The Polish National Health Fund is to be abolished, Gazeta Prawna informs. The government wants to divide the central institution into several regional organisations. The decentralisation of the Fund is to end in introducing private health insurance institutions in 2012. In that way, as the Health Minister explains, the health care market will become more competitive as the patients will be able to choose were to pay their money for treatments.

Nasz Dziennik writes that the new Czech health care law is likely to cause Polish-Czech abortion tourism. The new regulations in the Czech Republic provide for almost unlimited access to the procedure of abortion for all foreign women. According to the daily, this situation will weaken the very strict Polish anti-abortion law, as the Polish women will be able to legally end pregnancies in the neighbouring country.

Can't find the poll that this information has been taken from - but the Poles have it right, "hitting and smacking are two different things entirely".

Anti-Smacking Bill hits California

This from www.mensnewsdaily.com April 4, 2008

California Assemblywoman Sally Lieber has introduced AB 2943 to outlaw spanking children up to 3 years old in California. It is identical to last year's AB 755, which drew national attention.

The bill will ban "any striking of a child, any corporal punishment, smacking, hitting, [or] punching." The penalties in the bill, which can be seen here, are fairly substantial. A few thoughts:

1) I don't believe in and do not practice physical discipline of my kids

2) The bill represents another state intrusion on the family and parenting rights, which is already a problem.

3) As with any government policy related to the family, there is the definite possibility of anti-male bias in the law's application. Bystanders, police officers, judges and juries may well see a mother who spanks as a poor, overburdened woman trying to control her out-of-control kids, while viewing a father who spanks as abusive.

Lenin perceptively said "Only weak governments need strong measures." I think it is often true that only weak parents--or parents who've been temporarily placed in a position of weakness--need "strong measures" like spanking or other forms of physical discipline. However, I do believe there can be extraordinary situations where spanking a young child is appropriate.

An example from my youth--my mother, my younger sister and I were near a crowded, busy street and my sister--probably age 3 or 4 at the time--bolted out into the street. My mother quickly got her and then spanked her--not because my mom was mad or scared (though I'm sure she was), but because she wanted to give my sister a quick and memorable lesson to prevent her from ever bolting out into the street again like that. I don't know that I would've handled it the same way, but it's certainly a defensible reaction, and hardly something worthy of government sanction.