That would send a signal to the entire country about the need to raise the status of children in our society, and to fight child abuse. Recently it has been used in successful defences of teachers and parents who have slapped, pushed and punched children, a teacher who struck a child's head with a hammer, and another who hit a student with a book. But that's a hotly debated notion. Critics point out that if one applied the same logic to adults, it would be treated as an infringement of human rights. We no longer administer the lash to discourage petty crime because as a society we believe physical violence is wrong.
Studies show that spanking children changes short-term behaviour.
But children who are spanked also are far more likely to be aggressive and violent, and to break the law. In countries where the explicit right to hit children has been taken out of law, the rate of children killed and seriously injured has dropped. Eliminating Section 43 would not in itself criminalize the act of striking a child. Physical discipline would still be permitted, under the common law, most experts believe. What the change would do is remove a defence in statute law for that act.