If you can’t beat the shit out of your own child who can you beat the shit out of?

CBC reports on a new study to be published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that physical punishment of children (such as spanking) has severe negative health consequences, and that the exemption in the Criminal Code that allows it should be repealed. The issue of spanking was covered by the Supreme Court in 2004, which allowed the exemption to stand.

Children who have experienced physical punishment tend to be more aggressive toward parents, siblings, peers and, later, spouses, and are more likely to develop antisocial behaviour, said Joan Durrant, of the department of family social sciences at the University of Manitoba and Ron Ensom of Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa.

Physical punishment is also associated with a variety of mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety and use of drugs and alcohol.

[...]

They noted that when parents in more than 500 families were trained to reduce their use of physical punishment, the difficult behaviours in the children also declined.

[....]

Although working to outlaw spanking is the correct move, one shouldn’t focus so much on corporal punishment that one neglects to target other forms of child abuse. There are destructive things that parents can do to their kids that don’t involve any hitting. For example, Clarissa has mentioned force–feeding. Another example is arbitrarily denying healthcare.

The title of this post is taken from a comment by Jake Squid at an old Pandagon thread.

Afghanistan passes law legalizing rape

The name “Hamid” means “praised”, but in this case the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, should be condemned instead. Via Think Progress comes horrible news that he has traded women’s rights in order to advance his political career (emphasis added):

Afghanistan’s President, Hamid Karzai, has signed a law which “legalises” rape, women’s groups and the United Nations warn. Critics claim the president helped rush the bill through parliament in a bid to appease Islamic fundamentalists ahead of elections in August.

[...]

The most controversial parts of the law deal explicitly with sexual relations. Article 132 requires women to obey their husband’s sexual demands and stipulates that a man can expect to have sex with his wife at least “once every four nights” when travelling, unless they are ill. The law also gives men preferential inheritance rights, easier access to divorce, and priority in court.

A report by the United Nations Development Fund for Women, Unifem, warned: “Article 132 legalises the rape of a wife by her husband”.

In a massive blow for women’s rights, the new Shia Family Law negates the need for sexual consent between married couples, tacitly approves child marriage and restricts a woman’s right to leave the home, according to UN papers seen by The Independent.

“It is one of the worst bills passed by the parliament this century,” fumed Shinkai Karokhail, a woman MP who campaigned against the legislation. “It is totally against women’s rights. This law makes women more vulnerable.”

Oops… she did it again

Medical Assistant Sylvia Olona at the Presbyterian Health Services Rio Rancho Family Health Center in Rio Rancho, New Mexico “accidentally” removed the Intrauterine Device of a patient after the patient requested that Olona shorten the strings.

What was Olona’s response?

“[H]having the IUD come out was a good thing.” After asking the patient if she wanted her thoughts on the situation, Olona said, without waiting for an answer: “[P]ersonally do not like IUDs. I feel they are a type of abortion. I don’t know how you feel about abortion, but I am against them. What the IUD does is take the fertilized egg and pushes it out of the uterus.” She then suggested that the patient get a Depo-Provera shot or use the pill, and refused to insert a new IUD.

IUDs work in no such way, and if she became a medical assistant at any reputable educational facility she surely would have learnt that. In addition, you never ever tug on the strings. Never.

In a true show of spin, Olona came mightly close to pulling out other patients’ IUDs deliberately: “‘Everyone in the office always laughs and tells me I pull these out on purpose because I am against them, but it’s not true, they accidentally come out when I tug.”

If she is unable to cut strings on an IUD properly, she is incompetent, especially as she has seemingly done it before. Incompetence is a definite cause for termination in my book, and if Olona is that incompetent, she should be fired.

On the other hand, it is possible that Olona is deliberately pulling out IUDs. In that case, instead of helping the patient and doing her job, she ASSAULTED HER, violating her BODILY AUTONOMY and SECURITY OF PERSON by FORCING A MEDICAL PROCEDURE ON HER WITHOUT HER CONSENT and then started moralizing and lecturing the patient!

The patient is suing both Olona and the center for battery, negligence, and constitutional violation. I hope that Olona’s qualifications are cancelled, she is forced to apologize, and held liable for damages. Proper and just compensation and outcomes should result.

Hat tip to RH Reality Check for the title.