How do you define "beating"? I'm not questioning a smack to the face or torso and such, but where's the line between spanking and beating? My parents spanked me on the butt as a kid, many times with a belt, but I would NEVER consider them abusive. We had a great relationship. I felt very much loved my whole childhood. I wasn't afraid of them but I sure didn't want a whoopin, as we call it down south. Never felt like they were doing it to make themselves feel better or let off steam.
If someone had called social services and it caused me to be removed from my home, I would be devastated and angry at the person who called. So at what point do you think someone should call 911 on a parent?
I'll admit my wife and I started out hand-spanking our child because that's how we were raised. (And yeah my kid would scream about having to go outside at the hall. She also screamed when we'd take something away from her. Kids do that as toddlers.) After leaving the org and doing our own research we decided that wasn't a means of punishment we wanted to use on our daughter. So we stopped.
My point is I think some folks were actually abused by their parents and wonder if they view all spanking parents the same way. I don't think that should be the case. While I see other forms of punishment as being more effective without the risk of hurting the child's self esteem, my parents were not critical thinkers. They didn't analyze other possibilities like we do. But I never felt unloved as a child and I don't think my self-confidence was crushed from spankings. And I certainly hope my daughter doesn't grow up thinking we physically abused her when she was little.