Loving parents could be criminalised: Please pray

What has the UK come to where it could be criminal to smack a child but to teach it the delights of buggery is fine?

The Scottish Government has announced that it will support a Bill to criminalise parental smacking. The proposal mirrors a plan for Wales announced last year by First Minister Carwyn Jones. This is a huge threat to families in Scotland. Even the mere suspicion of parental smacking could see children removed from their parents and questioned by government officials. It is important that Christians and others speak out against this massive state intrusion into family life now. Smacking is not child abuse. It is one of many ways for parents to discipline their children and an important one which should not be illegal. There is a clear difference between child abuse and loving parental discipline. Banning smacking would involve massive state intrusion into family life. It would turn thousands of loving mothers and fathers into criminals overnight, diverting resources away from tackling genuine cases of child abuse. The present law should be left as it is. Unreasonable physical punishment is already treated as assault but ordinary parental smacking is rightly allowed. Loving parenting should not come under scrutiny from state officials. Please pray that many will speak out against the plans, that there will be widespread and fair media coverage, and ultimately that both proposed bans would be defeated. Yours in Christ, Colin Hart Director The Christian Institute Why the proposed ban on parental smacking is so wrong Banning smacking will overwhelm police and social workers with trivial reports so that real cases of child abuse are missed. Loving parents should not be criminalised. A smacking ban would turn thousands of parents into criminals overnight while doing little to stop bad parents abusing children. It should be the role of parents to decide whether or not to smack their children, rather than the Government’s. The state should not be using the criminal law to regulate how parents bring up their children. The public strongly opposes a ban on smacking. A ComRes poll in Wales earlier this year found that 76% of adults were against criminalising smacking, while only 11% were in favour. Smacking is not child abuse. There is a clear difference between child abuse and loving parental discipline. Some say “children should have the same protection as adults”. But children are not adults. For obvious reasons, children are not allowed to drive, marry or own a firearms licence. Children are dependent on their parents to teach them right from wrong and physical discipline is a loving way of doing so. It’s bad for children, families and society when children are not properly disciplined. Most adults were smacked when they were children – polls asking about this routinely show over 80%. They do not resort to violence to solve their problems, nor do they think their parents were child abuser