Mental Violence a Crime? In France - Yes

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/world/europe/26paris.html?ref=domesticviolence

Erlanger, Steven. "France May Make Mental Violence a Crime." NY Times. NY Times, 25 Feb. 2010. Web. 27 Sept. 2011.

This article is about a proposed law to make psychological abuse illegal in France. Although the proposal doesn't say that in so many words. That is part of the debate on its effectiveness - some think it is too vaguely stated and it wouldn't make any difference. The law relies on proof of the abuse and some believe any proof found wouldn't be tangible enough.
Erlanger's intent was fairly expository, he is telling everyone the facts of the situation. The intended audience would be aimed toward those interested in wordly or foreign affairs. Erlanger does a decent job in covering all sides of the story. He definitely could have done more from the public view although I understand why he stuck to the professional sides - it helps the reader understand more. This isn't a topic readers would connect very well with, so Erlanger stays focused on informing the readers instead of trying to involve them.
As I said before this is a mainly expository and informative article so there weren't any biases or flaws in logic that I could detect.
This article was interesting, but not very attention-grabbing. Unless truly interested in the topic, the reader has to put forth effort to maintain focus on the subject. Although not gripping it was quite an interesting idea. I think mental violence is a very real problem, but I also believe it would be hard to find tangible proof of the abuse. In general I am quite passionate about abuse, be it physical, emotional, sexual, mental, or anything else. It's just not good and I feel very strongly about that (even though I used a terrible adjective).
Perhaps this specific topic wouldn't be something for me to continue with, but I could do something on the topic of abuse - maybe domestic violence. This topic could work for others, but it's only going to be a powerful thing if you're really passionate about the topic.