Assemblywoman Reintroduces Law to Ban Spanking
by Staff
April 11, 2008
SACRAMENTO (christiansunite.com) -- Assemblywoman Sally Lieber has introduced a bill that will effectively ban spanking in California. Identical to last year's highly publicized AB 755, this new AB 2943 will make it a crime to spank a child."Last session this same bill received national attention because of its assault on parents rights to discipline their children," stated Karen England, executive director of Capitol Resource Family Impact. "We succeeded in stopping the bill because parents were so outraged that an arrogant lawmaker thinks she knows better than parents how to raise their children."
According to AB 2943, a parent who spanks their child would be placed on probation for a minimum of 4 years, and would be forced to attend a "nonviolent parental education class" and the child would receive a criminal court protective order "protecting the victim from further acts of violence or threats" and "residence exclusion or stay-away conditions."
AB 2943 declares it illegal to inflict "physical pain or mental suffering." These ambiguous terms include any suffering cause by instruments including (but not limited to) "a stick, a rod, a switch, an electrical cord, an extension cord, a belt, a broom, or a shoe." Parents often use wooden spoons or rulers to discipline a disobedient child. Under AB 2943, such discipline would be illegal.
"In the legislature we often hear that schools have become too unsafe and we need 'sensitivity' or 'tolerance' training," stated Meredith Turney, legislative liaison for CRFI. "But the reason children are unruly is because they aren't being disciplined. Taking away the rights of parents to lovingly discipline their children will only worsen the behavior problems that justify indoctrination classes in schools."
"Current laws already punish abusive parents for shaking or harming children," explained England. "This bill goes much further and seeks to prohibit parents from raising healthy, responsible children."
"The legislature's analysis of this bill last year actually quoted from Bible passages admonishing parents to discipline their children, citing these quotes as justification for banning spanking," stated Turney. "There is contempt in the legislature for Judeo- Christian values and AB 2943 is the most blatant evidence of this attempt to take away our freedom to raise children according to our beliefs."
AB 2943 will be heard in the Assembly Public Safety Committee in the next few weeks.
