You are absolutely correct. However, I was directly addressing the risk factors, one of which is poverty. Both child and spouse abuse are far more common in low socioeconomic groups. I don’t think that abuse is under-reported in wealthier families at all. The Tony Veitch arrangement is very unusual. It is my experience that under-reporting occurs mostly in poorer families where abuse is considered a norm (giving her the “bash”) and where the options for getting out of the situation seem fewer.

The overrepresentation of asian women in the figures backs up my experiences there where it is used as a weird form of contraception due to societal attitudes to pre-martial sex. Young women who carry or insist their partners use condoms are seen as being ‘bad girls’ while the males don’t use because they don’t like them but there are large number of teens having sex. I’m not sure how many girls are using birth control pill, but as medical privacy is as strict over there, I’m guessing not so much. Adoption isn’t popular due to obession over family bloodlines and the shame of unwanted pregnancy. But kids, especially boys, are valued when they are conceived in the ‘right’ circumstances.

Half of women New Zealand undergoing an abortion do so having already given birth themselves at least once or more. Women undergoing abortions are also more likely to be single.

The case of a single mum not wanting to add to an already difficult job is understandable as is not wanting to go throgh the pregnancy and adoption process with a child to care for. It is a large burden for society to expect her to carry when she is one of the most disempowered groups in society.

Also macdoctor, I remember reading somewhere that spousal abuse is present in all strata of society yet it is often seen as a problem of the poor since they might not come to ‘private arrangements’ for it like Tony Veitch. I imagine that child abuse may also suffer the same misconcpetion and your policies do nothing to catch those kids.