TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The legislature has passed a draft amendment that would reduce or free adult children from the obligation to support parents who abused them when they were young.

Currently lineal blood relatives in Taiwan are obliged by the Civil Law to take care of each other. Under the revision, adult children can ask the court to lessen their responsibility for the care of parents who have abused them, their spouses or linear blood relatives. The children can be totally freed of the responsibility depending on the magnitude of the abuse.

The amendment would also absolve any penalty for abandonment of parents if the parents attempted to kill the children, have sexually assaulted, abused them or failed to support them for more than two years.

The amendment revisits the traditional Chinese concept that "The parent is always right." Premier Wu Den-yih said the existing laws that entitle abuse parents to sue their adult children for abandonment or lack of support is unfair and may constitute a "second injury" to the abused children. The amendment redefines the support between parents and children as a "mutual obligation," Wu said.