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Moral Panic - Child
Sexual Abuse |
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I was pleased to see a statement
from Dr Moira Woods herself in the press, however brief (the Irish Times,
February 20th). I can understand why her family feel that, after 10 years of
living with the Medical Council inquiry, "the serious issues involved
must now be addressed by others". I would like to be one of those
others, as an ordinary citizen. From reading most of what has been
printed up until now, and watching and listening to what has been broadcast,
one would get the impression that Dr Woods was a GP who wandered into the
child sex abuse area almost by accident, and began irresponsibly throwing
around wrongful allegations of abuse. Dr Woods is a well qualified
doctor. She could have decided to make a lot of money quietly from private
patients. Instead, she worked in the She was appointed precisely
because she was the only doctor at the time with the appropriate experience,
and was very highly respected by professionals in this area. This was in
1985, the dark ages when nobody would believe that such a thing could happen
in Dr Woods and the team in the SATU
rescued hundreds of children, and public awareness of this evil has been
greatly advanced by her work. Contrary to suggestions that Dr Woods
worked alone, she worked with health boards, social workers, legal personnel,
garda and psychologists. Are all those who were
involved in the cases considered in this inquiry now open to the possibility
of an investigation into their work, followed by media publicity? The fact is that she has not been
found guilty of false accusations of sexual abuse, but of procedural lapses
on a minority of points. The media has treated this heroic
woman shamefully. I wouldn't be at all surprised if future, more enlightened,
generations decided to build a statue of her in |
