Muriel statement false and out of touch

Friday, 21 November 2003, 8:56 am
Opinion: Scoop Reader Opinion

Muriel statement false and out of touch

Dear Muriel

In your media release titled "Maharey Statement False and Out of Touch" of today's date you quoted that US research has also found that "the rate of abuse is 14 times higher if the child is living with a biological mother who lives alone". The research article that you drew this quote from is to be found at http://www.mafamily.org/ChildAbuse.htm.

Right under the quote that you selected from the abovementioned research article is the following statement "the rate of abuse is 20 times higher if the child is living with a biological father who lives alone".

I am sickened that you would go so far - in your unashamed and blatantly biased support of single father's groups - as to mislead the public by publishing carefully selected parts of articles that seek to put biological mothers in bad light, while hiding the FACT that biological fathers abuse their children more times than biological mothers abuse their children. I'm therefore driven to say that if anyone's statement is false and out of touch it is yours Muriel.

If you care so much for New Zealand's children as you purport to do, why ignore that the other strongly implicated family characteristic contributing to abuse risk is substance-abusing parents, which the abovementioned research article also confirmed?

L Mylie

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