Cathy Young at Time: Accusation Isn’t the Same as a Guilty Verdict

Over at
Time, Reason contributing editor Cathy Young
points out that the resurgent allegations of sexual abuse
leveled against Woody Allen by his 28-year-old adopted daughter are
disturbing, but they don’t constitute proof that he committed the
crimes. False allegations do exist, and the fact that the original
charges aganst Allen were leveled during the nasty dissolution of a
relationship should at least raise a few concerns.

What about the fact that the charges were originally made during
a bitter breakup and custody dispute between Allen and Dylan’s
mother, Mia Farrow? If you think this is relevant, the feminists
say, you are embracing the misogynist myth of vengeful women using
sexual abuse allegations as a weapon. In fact, asserts Zoe Zolbrod
in Salon.com, “research shows that it is not more common for
accusations made during custody battles to be proved false than it
is for any other sex abuse accusation,” with only 1% to 6% of abuse
charges found to be maliciously fabricated; what’s more, writes
Zolbrod, custody-related false accusations usually come from
fathers, not mothers.

But these claims are contradicted by a major Canadian study that
tracked more than 11,000 reports of child abuse and neglect in
Canada in 2003. While reports of sexual abuse made during custody
or visitation conflicts are fairly rare — the study identified 69
such cases — they are also quite likely to prove unfounded.