Israel's high court justices could use a slap on the tush for their latest ruling by Jonathan Rosenblum Refuting the legal analysis underlying the Supreme Court's recent ban on spanking is not difficult, as Evelyn Gordon so incisively demonstrates. The court itself barely offered any legal reasoning.
Children are human beings, too.
The court's social science was no more convincing. It was content with a half-page citation of authorities, without even deigning to tell us what they say. A number of recent studies have come to the conclusion that moderate physical punishment can be an effective educational tool and doesn't harm children. Beinisch's entire argument against any physical punishment was that any parents who spank their children even once may become child abusers. She assumes, without support, that every parental spanking is a microcosm of what child abusers do on a continuous basis.