The spanking question

The Providence Journal: In Britain, as in the United States, the debate over spanking children has raised temperatures on all sides of the issue. The House of Lords has responded with a sensible measure that allows spanking but within limits. Americans would do well to follow this reasonable path.
The anti-spanking contingent portrays the practice as a form of child abuse. The pro-spanking people, often identified as social conservatives, say the right to administer this form of punishment belongs to parents -- and is no business of the state's.
A 144-year-old British law gave parents the right to spank children as "reasonable chastisement" for bad behavior. The recent vote by the House of Lords, Parliament's upper house, stood up to pressure to forbid spanking altogether. Instead, it banned hitting that caused physical or mental harm; spanking that caused bruising, scratching or reddening of the skin would be against the law.
Die-hard foes
These limitations did not appease die-hard foes of such punishment. As the writer Salman Rushdie put it: "Nobody suggests that a man should hit a woman to bring her into line as long as he doesn't really hurt her. The same thing is true about her children."
Rushdie unfortunately ignores important differences between adults and children. Adults can operate at an advanced verbal level, and toddlers cannot.
There is no better way to get the attention of a child who wanders into the busy street than to give him or her a quick smack on the rear.
Let us note that responsible proponents of spanking believe that the practice should come with strict limits. Even the conservative child psychologist John Rosemond advises against frequent spanking. And any corporal punishment should be done quickly, privately, on a clothed rear end, and never in rage.