Mark Keown

I agree entirely with the rising chorus against violence against children now with the recent problems with baby Nia etc. It is time for NZ to get its act together. We need to see children as precious, to be loved and nurtured, treated with gentleness and not harshly. We need to educate people to know how to raise children. We need to promote programs which give parents training. We need greater support for families and parents. But again the outcry raises questions for me in terms of consistency. In May I blogged about abortion and again I find myself getting annoyed that people want to rise up and stop the beating of children yet we kill 17,000 children a year in the womb! People cry out against this on the basis that children are defenceless and need our protection and love; it is a child's inalienable right to be raised with love and never the victim of violence. Yet, we continue to kill them when they are at their most defenseless in the womb of their mother. The justification...