"I do not think that you can get a fair child abuse trial before a jury anywhere in the country… I do not care how sophisticated or law smart jurors are, when they hear that a child has been abused, a piece of their mind closes up, and this goes for the judge, the jurors, and all of us. …we do not care whether it is the right individual or not. Somebody should be punished for this heinous crime." –Abner Mivka, Former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals/District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Mikva’s assertion, that child abuse might affect jury verdicts, is used to illustrate “generic prejudice.” But it’s not just judges and juries that are prejudiced. Child abuse pediatricians, doctors, their institutions, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the entire system of Child Protective Services (CPS) and law enforcement are all too often guilty of generic prejudice as well. As thousands of innocent families increasingly become subject to heinous accusations of child abuse by pediatricians and doctors, the tragedy of false accusations and convictions is increasing.
But the medical and child protection system’s lack of impartiality is just the tip of the iceberg. More shocking are the many ways in which the medical profession and its child abuse pediatric specialty hide stereotyping, arrogance, abuse of authority and twisted “science” when it claims to “diagnose” child abuse – which is in fact a legal allegation, not truly a medical diagnosis.
With agonizing slowness, as families’ stories are told, some are finally beginning to look more closely and question the assumptions on which child abuse pediatrics are based.
