This is not a riddle, it is a core question arising from the smacking debate. Simon Thomas, Plaid Cymru MP for Ceredigion, pointed out in the House of Commons last week that the defence of reasonable chastisement, used to justify hitting children, was once a legal defence available to a man accused of hitting his wife or servant.
We don't accept that anymore. So Thomas wanted to know why the reasonable chastisement defence should be open to those who smack children.
Andrew Turner, Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight, was ready with an answer. "I should have thought that there is an obvious difference between a child who is not yet, or is in the process of becoming, a moral being and a wife or a servant who, one would hope, already is."
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