Danielle Gonzalez's List: Child Abuse Argument Research

• Every year more than 3 million reports of child abuse are made in the United States involving more than 6 million children (a report can include multiple children).
• The United States has among the worst records among industrialized nations – losing on average between four and seven children every day to child abuse and neglect.
• A report of child abuse is made every ten seconds
• More than four children die every day as a result of child abuse.
• It is estimated that between 50-60% of child fatalities due to maltreatment are not recorded as such on death certificates.
• Approximately 80% of children that die from abuse are under the age of 4.
• About 30% of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children, continuing the horrible cycle of abuse.
• Abused children are 25% more likely to experience teen pregnancy.
• About 80% of 21 year olds that were abused as children met criteria for at least one psychological disorder.
• Abused teens are more likely to engage in sexual risk taking, putting them at greater risk for STDs.
• 14% of all men in prison and 36% of women in prison in the USA were abused as children, about twice the frequency seen in the general population.
• Children who experience child abuse & neglect are about 9 times more likely to become involved in criminal activity.

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• According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, "the danger to children is greater from someone they or their family knows than from a stranger."
• According to figures released by UNICEF, over the past decade more than 20,000 American children are believed to have been killed in their own homes by family members. That is nearly four times the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and means that America has the worst record of child abuse in the industrialized world.
• Twenty-seven children under the age of 15 die from physical abuse or neglect every week in America. According to UNICEF, the United States has 2.4 annual deaths per 100,000 children, compared to 1.4 for France; 1 in Japan, and 0.9 in the United Kingdom.
• other countries with far lower abuse rates — unlike the United States — have social policies that provide child care, universal health insurance, pre-school, parental leave, and so on.
• If seven children were killed each day by strangers (or released sex offenders), the public would be outraged. Yet the public is largely unaware of (or indifferent to) parents who murder their children.
• as many as seven children die from abuse and neglect every day in America.

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• the problem of sacralizing child abuse, of beating children as a religious act.
• Hitting kids is bad enough, but when people hide behind scripture to justify it, it is especially grotesque - it scars the children, and it scars the tradition which justifies it.
• it is precisely those of us for whom the Bible is a sacred and life-centering text that must take the lead in stopping it.
• We cannot simply distance ourselves from “those crazy people”, because “those crazy people” are using the same books we hold dear to commit atrocities
• scientific evidence against the practice is overwhelming. Kids who are hit, fare no better, and often fare far worse than children who are not. Of course for some biblical literalists that argument will not suffice.
• The literalists will quote chapter and verse beginning with Proverbs 13:24, One who spares the rod, hates his child. (The commonly heard, “spare the rod, spoil the child”, by the way, does not actually appear anywhere in the Bible - it’s an expression based on this verse.)
• they don’t want to kill people for violating the Sabbath, but for whatever reason, actually want to hit kids and delight in finding a biblical “justification” for it.
• the real challenge is not to Michael Pearl, it is to the rest of us, especially those who own Pearl’s book, believe, or teach, that hitting kids is a religious act.
• There is no way to bring Lydia Schatz back, or to undo the damage to her still living siblings, or any of the other children who are beaten in the name of God. We can however do everything in our power to put a stop to the practice. For the sake of these kids and for the sake of the traditions we hold dear

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• accepted ideologies and doctrines of Christianity that often justify the abuse, neglect and even the death of children. This abuse remains prevalent in our societies and will continue to be practiced as long as religion is part of our social construct because so many individuals have been duped into believing that Christian morality is the pinnacle characteristic of goodness and rearing a child according to biblical standards will result in an upstanding and trustworthy adult.
• religious belief is a memetic virus of the mind and the natural progression of many mental illnesses often results in a bad outcome.
• Christianity can be classified as delusional because it teaches many things to be factual that have been proven false. Willful ignorance, being one of the primary symptoms of delusion, causes the believer to maintain acceptance of proven falsehoods regardless of widely available evidence to the contrary.
• The physical abuse of children is so common within Christianity that it is not even considered criminal, and in many cases it is condoned as a perfectly acceptable form of discipline.
• The bible is regarded by many believers as the inerrant word of god, suitable for teaching and reproof, and scripture justifies child abuse via the following bible verses:
• • Prov 13:24: “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes (diligently).”
   
  • Prov 19:18: “Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.”
   
  • Prov 22:15: “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.”
   
  • Prov 23:13: “Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.”
   
  • Prov 23:14: “Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell (Shoel).”
   
  • Prov 29:15: “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.”
• Many Christians believe that it is preferable to start physically abusing children at a young age. Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, one of the most influential personalities in Christian circles and widely regarded as an expert on child rearing, recommends spanking children as early as 18 months of age. Many Christian parents hold that that the physical abuse of their children is the only effective method of discipline and routinely reject non-violent techniques. The problem is only exacerbated as many primary and secondary schools still “paddle” school children. To make matters worse, the paddling is usually carried out by the school principal. When a child is abused at home, in school and supported by the church, there is absolutely no refuge available to them. Most of the time the child grows into an adult who abuse their own children because hitting children teaches them to become hitters themselves. Many children are assaulted with switches, paddles, bats, bike chains, open hands, closed fists, axe handles, canes and whatever else is handily available.
• This form of child abuse, while reprehensible to anyone who has an ounce of compassion and a rudimentary understanding of child psychology, pales in comparison to the parents who allow their children to die in the name of god via the reprehensible practice of relying on faith healing.
• According to an article in the Journal of Pediatrics which examined the deaths of 172 children from families who relied upon faith healing, it has been concluded that 81% of these children who died under the care of faith healers would have likely survived if they had received regular medical care.
• Innocent lives are being lost due to mentally ill parents who believe that divine intervention will result in spontaneous recoveries. The delusion of religious belief continues to sway the gullible mind into believing that god will heal.
• the utmost form of negligence.

• The 1944 case of Prince v. Massachusetts that states “The right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease or the latter to ill health or death” only allows the prosecution of the guilty party after the fact, after a child has died, and only if the death can be proven to have been preventable, which is subject to long and expensive trials that usually end up with out of court settlements and little or no prison time for the faith healer. Even with the horrific rate of failure thousands of the deluded masses of believers continue to flock to them because they are convinced that god will heal them because, according to the bible, he will, as is evidenced by this scriptre:

   

  Exodus 15:26: And He said, “If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the LORD, am your healer.”
• in the cases of religiously motivated parentally inflicted homicide, the signs that would otherwise be observed as early warning indicators of a potential problem are not apparent until it is too late
• In many cases, abusive and/or homicidal parents were themselves victims of abuse at the hands of extremely fundamental religious parents.
• the parent who murders their child in the name of god is obviously insane, and has probably been so for a very long time, and religion has become the catalyst for their homicidal acts.
• Religion is the catalyst for so much violence, destruction and outright horrific behavior in the human race. It is bad enough when we read about adults being killed or their lives destroyed by religion, but when a child is beaten, neglected or murdered due to religious belief, it is beyond horrific. It is unconscionable.

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• Challenge them. Get in their face. You talk about, I’ve got rights, you know? Really? Who issues them? Teach them a lesson. Push them to the wall, they are going to cry, it’s going to hurt their feelings. Push them. Because if you don’t do it now, it’s going to be much worse when they are pushed and they are shoved and they are shot. Push them. Teach them. They need to know the truth. And they need to be pushed up against the wall once in a while so they know they can defend themselves. They know they can survive. They don’t run around like little girls crying at the drop of a hat. Push them. Failure is important. It is the only way to success. Let them fail.