Child abuse is one of the most saddening and tragic things we come across, and I would be one of the first to recognize the necessity of laws and consequences for those responsible, but what happens when we take our fear of not completely eradicating child abuse too far? What happens when our anxiety and concern crosses the line that exists between healthy boundaries and invasive practices? We get a no spanking law, like the one introduced on Feb. 8, by a California legislator. It would outlaw spanking children three-years-old or younger and carry a possible penalty of jail time or a $1,000 fine.

The bill was authored by Calif. Assemblywoman Sally Leiber, who attempted—rather sadly, I think—to defend the bill with the intention of creating a law that favored children, how this bill is definitely not and instance of a big mother government trying to come in to tell parents what to do, but how it is alternatively creating a line with the government for child protection. Leiber tried to gain support by saying children 3-years-old or younger are vulnerable to beatings by parents in the guise of physical punishment. On top of the already mounting pile of absurdity, she adds that they are no match with the awesome speed or impressive size or amazing force of the adult who is beating them. There is a reason that, if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs and passes this bill, California would become the first state to ever pass a no-spanking law. Our state, and country, for that matter, already has laws put into place to stop, punish, and prevent child abuse. The “adult who’s beating them,” as Leiber so eloquently put it, is not beating them by spanking them.The bill is written to ban “any striking of a child, any corporal punishment, smacking, hitting, and punching,” which I can assure you is covered in the numerous laws we have against child abuse. Why not enforce the rules we had before, rather than create new ones? They will work, if we let them. Besides that, I do not consider spanking to be under the category of physical abuse. I consider it a very necessary and invaluable part of raising a child.

For instance, my younger sister is now nine, but when she was in her infancy years, she loved plants. She loved eating plants. She, of course, being unable to talk did not understand that these plants were bad for her, and so she kept crawling up and eating them. My parents would wait until she was right next to the plant, so as not to confuse her about what she was being punished for, and give her a small swat on the hand when she reached out toward the plant. Nothing huge, no bruises, or emotional scars, just negative reinforcement for harmful behavior. It was the only method she could understand at the time.

But perhaps you do consider a swat on the bottom of a rebelling toddler to be long lasting and scarring abuse. Even then, I would hope you would appose this bill on the grounds that it is horribly invasive. Like the Patriot Act and other clearly invasive legislation, this bill would give an inordinate amount of power to the state government, which, if we go back a bit to review history, was the reason the constitution itself was written.

I would hope this bill would be rejected and vetoed for the sake of protecting individuals’ rights and to avoid the ever-present Big Brother option. Because if this bill is passed, where do we end? We don’t, which is the problem. This law would set a precedent, if adopted, and then the door would be open to a bunch of other laws similarly intended to break down all walls between our public and private lives, and also intended to deepen the power of the government over each of us.

I violently oppose this law, but not only because of my personal beliefs about spanking; the debate over spanking has been going on for a long time, with far wiser people than I on both sides. I simply do not want to live in a place where something as unique and individual as my parenting style is monitored and controlled by the state.