Action is Needed by State Lawmakers to Better Protect Children
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
It was once legal in America to beat a slave. Slaves were property. It was also legal for a man to beat his wife. She was his property.
Remember the Domestic Violence is a Crime educational campaign? Wives were determined not to be the property of their husbands to be legally beaten as a cultural value.
Now it’s still legal for human beings to be beaten, based on age, as property.
Where is the equivalent for the children in New York State? Where they remain the property of their parents to be beaten, sometimes justified as a cultural value?
It’s time to do the right thing. It should not require political courage. Other states and countries have done so. The World Health Organization, UNICEF and the American Psychological Association have issued these policies.
Failure to act on the part of state elected officials indicates an undeniable failure of character. The societal consequences of this failure are well-documented in the links below.
- https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/corporal-punishment-and-health
- https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/05/physical-discipline
- https://www.child-encyclopedia.com/social-violence/according-experts/corporal-punishment
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5540797/
- https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles/fs000204.pdf
Judith Sage
Mount Kisco
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