Attack on parenting faces delay

A proposal in the California Legislature that would define a well-deserved spanking administered in love by a concerned parent using a rolled-up newspaper as child abuse – and could send that parent to jail – now faces a delay.

California Assembly Speaker pro Tempore Sally Lieber

The plan, AB 2943 by Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-San Jose, is a rerun of her proposal defeated a year ago. She has stated her plan only addresses "child abuse," but she also defines any spanking as abuse.

Several California organizations that support traditional family values and parenting rights have raised a red flag over the issue again this year. Now the Campaign for Children and Families confirms the plan has been delayed, and it credits a flood of telephone calls and e-mails from citizens concerned about the issue.

"It the last two days, Assembly Appropriations Committee members have received hundreds of phone calls and e-mail messages from Californians opposed to the notion of criminalizing parents who lovingly and infrequently spank their children to correct misbehavior," the organization said in a statement today.

"On Wednesday, the committee placed AB 2943 on the 'suspense file' due to expected high enforcement costs in the midst of a $10 billion state budget deficit," the group said.

It noted May 23 is the last day for AB 2943 to be approved by the committee.

According to the Child and Family Protection Association, if the plan were adopted, "Police and sheriff departments will have a large increase of cases to investigate. District attorneys will also have a large increase in cases to review and prosecute. CPS workers will face a significant increase in reports of alleged abuse to investigate and petitions to be filed in juvenile courts. Criminal and juvenile court judges and their staffs can expect to see a significant increase in their workload. Most of these cases will involve innocent parents who have been arrested or reported because they lovingly disciplined their children. As a result, state and county funding will have to be significantly increased."

Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, said such a situation is just wrong.

"Innocent parents who lovingly and infrequently spank their children to correct misbehavior are not criminals. But they would be under AB 2943," he said.

He said not only can't the state afford the cost, "the unjustifiable harm that this bill would do to good parents should not be supported by anyone who loves justice."

"AB 2943 equates loving, corrective discipline with hateful, harmful abuse in the law. But parents who raise their children according to traditional values are certainly not child abusers as this bill unfairly claims," he said.

Lieber's plan essentially would add the "use of an implement" while spanking to the definition of child abuse under the California Penal Code. Other portions of the proposal duplicate existing child abuse law.

According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, "when Lieber claims that her bill only deals with child abuse, remember that she has stated repeatedly that all spanking, by definition, is child abuse. Her strategy in AB 2943 is to treat all spanking with an object as criminal child abuse.

"She has deliberately failed to make any distinction between spanking as a method of discipline and true child abuse," the organization summarized.

The plan earlier was approved by the California Assembly's Public Safety Committee.

"It's shameful that a lawmaker wants to ban parents from lovingly disciplining their children," said Karen England, executive director of Capitol Resource Family Impact.

"Many parents use a wooden spoon or similar instrument to discipline a disobedient child because they don't want to use their hand, an instrument of love," she said.

Meredith Turney, the organization's legislative liaison, testified against the plan.

"AB 2943 equates kicking, cutting or burning a child with a responsible spanking," she said. "The millions of responsible parents who lovingly discipline their children would never engage in such abusive behavior as burning or cutting their children."

The California Teacher's Association, however, supported the plan, saying, "The use of physical punishment teaches children that violence/physical force is an acceptable method to resolve differences. We need to stop the cycle of violence…"

That organization also supported teaching homosexuality in class and approved of communist teachers in public schools, England said.

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