Family Integrity

Author: HEF Admin

  • Abortion – The worst form of Child Abuse

    MEDIA RELEASE

    10 June 2008

    Abortion Supervisory Committee Deserves Criticism

    Family First NZ is welcoming the comments by a High Court judge that the Abortion Supervisory Committee has been applying the abortion laws too liberally and has failed to adequately supervise the work of certifying consultants.

    “The Committee has ignored the original intention of parliament and because of their lack of supervision and inaction, this has effectively led to abortion on demand,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

    “As a result, approximately 18,000 abortions are performed every year, and since 1991, the number of 11-14 year olds having an abortion has increased by 144%. The number of abortions for 15-19 year olds has increased by 74%. Each week, almost 80 teenagers have an abortion, and represent almost a quarter of all abortions performed in NZ.”

    Ironically, at the same time as almost 18,000 abortions were being performed in NZ last year, adoptions totaled less than 90, according to the Adoption Option Trust.

    “Abortions being performed at greater than 12 weeks has increased by 220%, despite all the pictures and scans we are seeing showing the fetal development of the unborn child,” says Mr McCoskrie. “These images are obviously being kept hidden from some of the women seeking an abortion.”

    “The high numbers of abortions (despite all the supposed safe sex messages and availability of contraception), and now this ruling, confirms that the Abortion Supervisory Committee continues to fail both women and the unborn child.”

    Family First NZ is calling for a law which requires informed consent (including ultrasound) for all potential abortions, and counselling to be provided only by non-providers of abortion services. Parental notification of teenage pregnancy and abortion should happen automatically except in exceptional circumstances approved by the court.

    ENDS

    For More Information and Media Interviews, contact Family First:

    Bob McCoskrie JP – National Director

    Tel. 09 261 2426 | Mob. 027 55 555 42

  • FI392-U4L, closet smacker exposed

    9 June 2008 – Family Integrity #392 — U4L, closet smacker exposed

    —–Original Message—–
    From: Craig Hill [mailto:craighill@maxnet.co.nz]
    Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2008 10:34 PM
    Subject: U4L,closet smacker exposed

    Hi All,

    We’re having a wonderful time with the Auckland push.

    The Warriors game realized over 1100 signatures, which is pretty good considering the small team, but the best part of the weekend has been the hypocritical Anti-Smackers.

    Try and figure these stories out.

    First case scenario,

    A mother walked past the table this morning at the netball courts, she very indignantly stated “You shouldn’t be smacking children”. Then as she walked away and to everyone’s amazement her daughter asked “Then why do you smack me so often?” Another mother in the crowd heard this and appropriately responded “AH, A closet smacker”.

    The double standard, hypocrisy, and the so called perceived moral high ground shown by this Anti-Smacker is bad enough, but sadly and worst of all is that this mother is probably losing her cool and is hitting in anger, poor child.

    Second and Third case scenario,

    At the Warriors game, remember “all was fine until the end of the match”.

    Now let’s set the tone for this hypocrisy. In regards to parenting the anti-smacker is pretty quick to claim that all violence leads to violence, then they will conveniently confuse the physical aspect of a correctional smack as and with that of a violent beating. So, according to their own admission and interpretation of parental discipline then we must assume that the physical nature of a rugby league match should then be classified as violent actions. How else do you describe “a man physically throwing other men to the ground as not being violent”.

    Now I’m confused. All of a sudden our anti-smackers recognize how the situation surrounding a physical action determines whether it is violent or not. Interesting.

    Here’s the question, Why were the anti-smackers so well behaved entering the match and then very aggressive upon leaving?

    Given the information above a “modern day evolutionary psychologist” may interpret this change in character as a result of being exposed to the aggressive nature of the game. They may claim something like “the aggressive actions witnessed in the game has aroused some ancient hunting gene” etc etc etc.They may also claim that the above reaction from the Anti-smackers validate the “Violence leads to violence” interpretation.

    I think our second and third case scenarios give a better answer.

    Another woman, on leaving yelled “YOU JUST WANT TO BEAT YOUR CHILDREN”. Tired of these false allegations I let her have it, I made sure I gave her everything and more, the same kind of misguided logic, a taste of her own medicine, I gave her my best and I enjoyed it. She was put in her place. I said, “Now look here Lady, I don’t know who you are but lets get your facts straight. You say all we want to do is beat our children, we can’t even beat the Rabbitohs”. The crowd roared with laughter.

    Then another woman had a crack at us, I will not repeat her flowery vocab, it was not pleasant. I was stunned, but then it happened. From the din of the crowd came a loud, drunken voice. It was heard by all. This man, even in his condition, summed up the situation better than Helen Clark on steroids. No one could argue with him and all agreed, he was right. This is what was said: “Now that’s a woman who was never hugged as a child”.

    We can’t even beat the Rabbitohs. Here is the problem, the reason for their character change, the reason for their nastiness. “The Warriors lost”. Their team of physical/violent men lost and were clearly not as physical/violent as the Rabbitohs. They turned their frustration on us, we became the victims, beaten with their lies we struggled on to keep up with the hordes willing to sign the petition.

    Now on a serious note, we had a wonderful time. However the more I see and hear the reactions, like the examples above, the more sorrow I feel for these folk. Sadly many have been deceived by those deliberate but mischievous arguments, many don’t understand the importance and the need for the parent to be the authority in the home.

    Unfortunately we don’t have the time to wait for these folk to wake up, we need to take positive action to regain our ground, the first step is to collect as many signatures as possible to force democratic process and change the direction our current leaders have chosen.

    Even if there is only one signature on a form it will be well received, we are close to entering our last week so…..

    LET’S BRING THIS PUPPY HOME

    Kind Regards,
    Craig Hill
    021746113
    http://www.unityforliberty.net.nz

    All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing” (Edmund Burke 1729-1797)

  • Comments on TVNZ Online eye-to-eye: debate

    https://familyintegrity.org.nz/2008/tvnz-online-eye-to-eye-debate/

    Well…I’ve watched this Eye2Eye program.

    It’s the usual useless sort of TV setup that uses a ‘crisis’ as a means of entertainment and solves nothing.

    Anyway…yes, Christine and Richard landed some good hits and got a bit of clarity, but at the end they both fell into a Marxist semantic trap, and unbeknown to themselves began arguing for the other side.

    They started using the language of State/Society ownership of children – “Our children, our babies…” etc, as though corporate man/class man/Marxist man has a greater interest and stake in the welfare of children than parents do, or that parents somehow raise children for the State. (‘State’ and ‘Society’ are intentionally capitalized because today ‘the State’ is the most powerful of modern gods). This view is utterly false and just indicates the degree to which Marxists have captured the language, and thus control the debate. Christine it seemed to me was statist in many of her statements, as was Willie in his closing comment, both effectively saying the State had to solve the problem. In fact ‘the cause of problem’ was never even identified. The swiftness with which they all (not sure about Richard) invoked State intervention at the end was worrying.

    To use Marxist language of State/Society ownership should be anathema to us, as it hands the debate to the Marxists who have the upper hand at the moment. We should look very carefully at all our language and expunge any Marxist terms from our vocab.

    Within the Biblical worldview that has controlled much of Western thought on parenting and children in the past, parents don’t ‘own’ children any more than the state does. God the Creator is the ultimate owner of everything, including children and their parents, and states. However, in this view, what parents do have which the state does not have (ideally a very limited state with little connection to modern day, all encompassing, Socialist States), is the God-given responsibility to raise ‘their’ children (in the sense of offspring rather than ownership) to be God honouring, law abiding, productive people who serve others. Children are given to parents on trust by God, and parents are to steward their children on behalf of God. Parents in many ways stand in the place of God to their children, as his representatives to them as guides, nurturers, and administrators of justice as defined by God. Neither parents nor children are creatures or possessions of States. Thus parents do not raise children and steward them as surrogates of the State.

    And ‘the cause of the problem’?

    It is not ‘environmental’, i.e., colonization, class oppression, disparity of incomes, poor education, hard births or tight nappies as a child. It is ‘internal’ in that humans are individually and corporately rebels against God, and work that rebellion out in a multitude of ways, one of which is for the image of God in children to be abused.

    Unfortunately Richard identified ‘poverty’ as one of the causes of child abuse. This is nothing but a thoughtless and unjustified slur on the myriads of parents throughout all time – the present being no exception – who have been poor but have not abused their children.

    ‘Poverty’ however is another great Marxist lever. Only they have redefined it to mean ‘relative poverty’. Thus, in the latest Investigate Mag, there is a critique of some social action group – clearly Marxist in orientation – who want to set the poverty level in NZ at ‘60% of the median household disposable income after housing costs.’ People with such an income aren’t poor, just relatively poor. They are actually incomprehensibly rich compared to the genuinely poor of the world. Unless their worldview allows for it or endorses it, the genuine poor who live in grinding poverty, are no more abusive than anyone else. We have the irony that the majority of those in the New Zealand Parliament (specifically including Sue Bradford and Helen Clark), and those in the highest positions appointed by the present Government (specifically Cindy Kiro) – all of whom are extremely wealthy, have a worldview that explicitly calls for and justifies the ultimate in child abuse. And so 18000 children are killed in their mother’s wombs every year in New Zealand. The gall of these people to brazenly say they are against child abuse and that poverty is a major cause, and yet exult over the wanton destruction of thousands of children, is almost beyond belief.

    Material wealth or poverty is not an indicator of the likelihood of abuse. Moral/spiritual poverty however is and this may also be externally expressed by drunkenness, drug addiction, crime (dishonesty, theft, violence), promiscuity, unwillingness to work, etc. All of these things head a person to material poverty, and mark some of the distinctions in the book of Proverbs in the Bible between the deserving and undeserving poor.

    The solution? The genuine conversion of violent, abusive individuals to the Christian Gospel, will over night remove those individuals from being abusive to others. If such conversion, with its accompanying transformation of the individual, does not occur and so does not remove the individual from the ranks of the abusers, then the abuse must be responded to as a matter of justice, of a wrong being committed against another. Unfortunately there is a problem at this level also, as today’s NZ Justice System not longer administers justice. Because of the rejection of its Christian roots grounded in the absolute standards of the Biblical worldview, it has lost all philosophical connection to real justice.

    For a number of reasons, the Christian analysis of the problem and solution to it, is not even considered by most today as having any relevance to public societal matters. Thus the real solution is locked away from ever being applied.

    All the best

    Renton

  • Jail for man who tossed baby onto concrete path

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=146&objectid=10513274

    4:05PM Thursday May 29, 2008

    A man has been jailed for tossing his one-year-old daughter into the air and letting her fall on to a concrete path and slashing a relative with a machete when he went to the baby’s aid.

    Raymond Kereti Ratu, 22, was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment after pleading guilty in Tauranga District Court yesterday to assaulting a child, injuring with regardless disregard for the safety of others, and possession of an offensive weapon, The Bay of Plenty Times reported.

    Crown prosecutor Sheree Christensen told Judge Stephen O’Driscoll it was fortuitous that neither the baby, who suffered bruises and grazes to her head, and Ratu’s other victim, who required nine stitches for a cut to his hand, were not more seriously injured.

    She said Ratu became angry his partner had left him looking after their baby while she went off in a car with friends.

    On her return Ratu confronted her at the car and fearing for her safety she locked the door, angering him even more.

    He threw the baby into the air about 4m causing her to land on the concrete footpath.

    His partner drove off to a relative’s home to get help.

    On her return, when two relatives tried to divert his attention to take the baby, he lashed out with the machete striking one on the hand.

    The baby was taken to Tauranga Hospital and spent one night under observation.

    – NZPA

  • Woman charged with toddler’s murder

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=146&objectid=10513391

    Woman charged with toddler’s murder

    5:00AM Friday May 30, 2008

    A 26-year-old woman has been charged with murder following the death of a 22-month-old girl at a Dunedin house on Monday evening.

    The woman will appear in the Dunedin District Court today.

    Southern district crime manager Detective Inspector Ross Pinkham said emergency services were called to the St Kilda house about 5.45pm on Monday. He declined to say who made the call, what the toddler’s injuries were or the relationship between the woman and child.

    He also would not comment on whether the child’s parents had been spoken to or whether the deceased child lived at the house, but did say police had spoken to members of the toddler’s family.
    He said it was not appropriate to comment on whether Child, Youth and Family had been alerted before the child’s death.

    Mr Pinkham said inquiries were still to be completed and there was ongoing liaison with the child’s family.
    He would not comment on whether police were investigating anywhere else or whether anyone else could face charges relating to the death.

    A post-mortem examination had been carried out by Dunedin coroner David Crerar and police were waiting on the final results of that, he said.

    The body of the girl had been returned to family.

    Mike Fox, who lives nearby, said a middle-aged couple lived at the address and had done for the past year and a half. He understood they owned the home.

    – OTAGO DAILY TIMES

  • Bruce Logan-NZ Herald

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=41&objectid=10514394&pnum=0

    By Bruce Logan

    Living in France, particularly in the south, has tended to reinforce the impression that smacking is not an old-fashioned and unenlightened activity at all. Indeed a number of mythologies one absorbed in New Zealand have dissolved. The French are not arrogant, they are not bad drivers and the children are not cheeky.

    Nevertheless, it was surprising to discover from a visiting Paris journalist that a significant majority of French adolescents valued obedience to parents above independence in a recent European survey. I have also discovered that 70 per cent of French children think that la fessee (French for a smack on the bottom) is fine.

    And smacking young children in France doesn’t seem to be a generational thing either. Ten years ago 85 per cent of parents thought smacking normal but a more recent survey put the figure at 87 per cent.

    For European anti-smackers all this is something of an enigma. France, the country that gave us the Enlightenment, they argue, is being regressive. It is quite simply old-fashioned.

    But the facts do not bear this out; children, one could reasonably argue, are treated better in France than any other European nation. France at 2.1 has the highest fertility rate of all the West European countries; only Sweden equals that.

    And then there are the government incentives; Three year paid parental leave with guaranteed job protection. Subsidised day care for the first two years of a child’s life.

    Universal full-time preschool at age 3. Monthly child-care allowance which increases with the birth of each child plus a grant for a third child of $2000. Subsidised nanny care.

    France spends about 15 per cent of its total budget on family and child services.

    French women are not only more productive than their European counterparts but they also have higher rates of employment than most other European countries. Seventy-four per cent of women between 25 and 54 with one child are in fulltime employment. It drops to 58 per cent with two children. Whatever one might think of that, the accusation “old-fashioned” is hardly appropriate.

    The French seem to have adopted a quality of life that encourages French women to feel legitimised when they enter the workforce. It might be that this has something to do simply with the way the French live. They certainly have a shorter working week than New Zealanders. Five or six weeks annual leave also helps.

    France remains a country where family life is valued. In every village and small town, especially in the south, most shops close for a two-hour lunch; sometimes longer. Even in large cities like Toulouse, many shops close for an extended lunch hour.

    Although this extended lunch hour is eroding, families still tend to come together during the lunch hour and again in the evening when very young children participate in family activities. The civilised custom of an aperitif with friends before the evening meal, and which can go on until quite late, will nearly always have children present.

    It is this mix of ritual and child friendliness which gives French life much of its appeal. It tends to encourage a certain expectation of trust which just might, for example, be evident in the remaining frequent use of cheques in supermarkets although the severe punishment for fraud could be a deterrent.

    The French are not old-fashioned at all but they are suspicious of the government when it tells parents how to treat their children. And it is this fear of unwarranted intrusion that I suspect is driving Bob McCoskrie and Family First. He would get considerable support in France.

    The use of smacking as a disciplinary tool for young children is not old-fashioned at all. It is not an exercise in violence or an indicator of a lack of love. Indeed I suspect most French parents would claim the opposite.

    To smack or not to smack is not the kind of non-issue that the Herald editorial seems to be claiming. Loving children and caring for them demands discipline and the smacking of young children must be something that parents are able to do without government manipulated guilt.

    The loving and disciplining of children lies at the heart of a culture and reflects a complexity of issues. It is far too complex an issue to be monitored by a poorly designed law.

    * Bruce Logan, a former teacher, is a conservative Christian who founded the Maxim Institute for social research.

  • Parents De-clawed by Rights Culture and Law Changes

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0806/S00068.htm

    MEDIA RELEASE

    June 2008

    Parents De-clawed by Rights Culture and Law Changes

    Family First NZ says that the case of a Bay of Plenty couple feeling they could do nothing to stop their teenager growing dope in the bathtub of the family home is indicative of how powerless parents are feeling in their role.

    “While the inaction of the parents is unacceptable, the current rights culture being preached to young people along with laws like the anti-smacking law has given an underlying message to young people that their parents cannot discipline them and cannot tell them what to do,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

    “The anti-smacking law has been hugely unpopular, not because parents are demanding the right to smack, but because they simply want the right to parent reasonably and effectively without unwarranted intervention. The law has had the effect of being an anti-parental correction law.”

    “This case highlights just how de-clawed parents are feeling, and follows on from recent reports showing teenagers are becoming increasingly violent or threatening towards their parents and that some parents no longer have the confidence to deal with the unacceptable behaviour.”

    “If the government wants parents to be responsible parents, they must firstly respect their authority,” says Mr McCoskrie. “The anti-smacking law and the rights culture pushed by the UN, Children’s Commissioner, Youth Law Project and others has undermined the role of parents, has failed to understand the special relationship and functioning of families, and has communicated to some children that they are now in the ‘driving seat’ and parents should be put in their place.”

    “This case highlights just how much confidence parents have lost.”

    ENDS

    For More Information and Media Interviews, contact Family First:

    Bob McCoskrie JP – National Director

    Tel. 09 261 2426 | Mob. 027 55 555 42