Thinking Goudge: Fatal child abuse and the problem of uncertainty

Abstract

The increased valuation of children’s lives characteristic of modern society emphasizes the problem of child abuse. Beginning in the 1960s, increased public awareness of child abuse led to increased attention to the professions concerned with child homicide. This attention has taken the form of inquiries into children’s deaths that historically concentrated on social work ‘error’. Recent inquiries have expanded their attention to other professions, particularly the medical and policing professions. Ontario’s Goudge Inquiry centred on paediatric forensic pathology but, rather than focusing concern on murdered children, considered the moral hazard of wrongful convictions stemming from an overzealous concern with child abuse. The inquiry thus raises the problem of what evidence is certain, and how this certainty is evaluated. In turn, this makes the risk of child abuse reflexive insofar as under conditions of uncertainty professional medical judgement contains reflexive risk conditions. Because of these reflexive conditions, professional willingness to engage in child protection is being undermined and therefore threatens to paralyse the larger child protection project.