In their supreme wisdom, the Court criminalized a spank on the bum under the age of 2. Even a rare spank with a strap when older is now also an offense punishable by law. This from the same Court that redefined conditional sentencing and misplaced youth justice.
What were they thinking? That kids like me would have been better off in a chaotic government group home than in the loving care of strict parents who transgress their “no strap” guideline?
Physical discipline accompanied physical affection in my home. I wasn't scarred - physically or emotionally - by the discipline of loving parents. My boys laugh when people suggest that they've been irreparably damaged by a swat before the age of two or the occasional spanking thereafter.
That afternoon, I was interviewed by a Vancouver radio station. We discussed the proclivity of victims of dysfunction to project their negative experiences on others who have not been similarly scarred. It seems a small percentage of the population with bad experience of discipline override the beneficial experience of countless others.
We pondered the limits of government intrusion into family homes. Maybe next they'll enforce how we feed our kids. Surely clogging your kids' arteries with junk food is more harmful than the occasional strap applied to their butt. Why stop at spanking? Perhaps the high court should criminalize bad nutritional habits of parents.
But this isn't a treatise advocating the use of the strap. I don't really care if you spank or not. No matter where you stand on the issue, if you physically injure your children, you should be charged with assault. On the other hand, I don't think government should threaten parents with jail for an occasional use of the strap.
Government’s zeal for the safety of kids, unfortunately, is highly selective.
On January 31st, the day after the Supreme Court decision, I attended a League for Life breakfast with fellow Sun Columnist Michael Coren, marking the beginning of “Respect Life” week.
As I listened to his compelling articulation of our pro-life position, it was tough to imagine anyone not being “pro-life.”
I surveyed the folks in the room. These were not rabid, gun-toting, doctor-shooting idiots who demonstrate their commitment to “life” by trying to kill someone. These were folks who recognize and value life – whether in the womb or out on the street. We sat with a mom who had suffered through a miscarriage. She questioned why anyone would engage in premeditated miscarriage.
Michael Coren offered an enlightening critique of our “culture of death.” He contrasted the legal protection of parking spaces for the handicapped against legislation facilitating the death of the handicapped.
As I listened, I realized life is fraught with contradictions…
I pondered the contradiction of a Court that condemns the use of a strap on a disobedient kid's derriere, but condones the use of forceps, chemicals and vacuums to remove unwanted and supremely vulnerable children from the womb.
The choice of the mom is denounced a crime in the former, but enshrined as a right in the latter. Is this equal justice for all?
It struck me odd that some individuals and groups defending vulnerable children from a spanking are willing to counsel moms to tear them limb from limb and scrape them from the womb. Death before discipline - isn't there something obscene about the contradiction?
Contradictory attitudes abound in regard to abortion.
Some feminists, in defending abortion as a right of choice, unconsciously support those around the world who kill female fetuses just because they're not male. Who’s to say that the physical, socio-economic and psychological rationalizations of Canadian women are superior to foreign rationalizations for sex-selective abortion? When women support the slaughter of women, something is terribly wrong.
Others decry the soft-peddling of “collateral damage” in war. Yet they defend abortion of developing children as “collateral damage” of a parent's choice.
In my work, I deal with many people who make wrong and harmful choices. I have made plenty of wrong choices myself. For me, being pro-life includes a humble application of grace and mercy to those who have made bad choices. It doesn’t, however, justify the initial decision.
And it doesn’t excuse the selective application of law meant to protect the vulnerable.
Is it too much to expect the Court that protects children from the strap to protect them from the forceps?
Rev. Harry Lehotsky
514 Maryland Street
Winnipeg, Mb R3G 1M5
(204) 775-4929
lehotsky@escape.ca