Sally Clarke has died....

[ZZMum]

Poor poor woman... how awful for her family after all they went thru...

The personal issues are all over the media, the BBC web site and even in the obtiuaries and there are countless discussion board threads about it all over the internet. The family if they've any sense, will choose not to read any of it and I'm sure they won't.

Pleasethink, I hope if any of Sally's family did see this thread, what they'd realise is that there are dozens of people here horrified at what happened to Sally and thinking 'there but for the grace of God go all of us'. And one offensive idiot.

Were there any posts other than Corkgirl's that you thought might be distressing?

I see the coroner was told it may have been death by natural causes but further tests are needed. How dreadful. If it is there will be no full inquest.

After time to think....

Caligula, if you'd care to point out where I failed to follow the argument, ignored issues and glossed over I'd be happy to self correct and anwer the points as well as I can.

I have been thinking about this discussion and genuinely cannot identify the glaring omissions to which you referred.
I would appreciate an opportunity to answer that accusation and to remedy the areas where it may have credence.

Yes. I think that (shit, have forgotten who and can't be bothered to scroll back up and look up who!) the poster who said it could happen to anyone has hit the nail on the head when she said:

"It could happen to anyone of us".

Of course it could.

I am much closer to the edge here than most of you. I cannot bear to think, or even imagine what Sally Clarke - and her husband - went through. Because it could have been me.

And I became very aware of how much alcohol I drank afterwards. Not because I got pissed every night. But because it was there and it helped. I have stopped altogether now. But I think that losing a baby and anything that dulls the pain go hand in hand.

I have said this one and I'll say it again: I hope people like Roy Meadows and his ilk rot in hell for all eternity.

I really, really do.

ditto, expat

GGG I think that most of us cannot begin to imagine, or bear to imgaine, what you ahve gone through.

And Sally Ckarke lost 2 babies and then all that followed, it really is hard to comprehend the scale of her tragedy.

He's a criminal on par with Ian Huntly, if you ask me, because he feels not one iota of compunction for the things he did, for the lives he destroyed whilst leaving his victims a shell of their former selves.

He's like one of those monsters on TV that sucks the soul out of someone and leaves their bodies.

Radio four now

Psycho - whether or not misogyny is 'rife' is beside the point - all it takes is one or two crucial people to hold misogynistic feelings and the damage is done.

The BBC report was full of implications about women and how they should conduct themselves, and how Sally Clarke 'failed'. Roy Meadows has repeatedly seen women as killers despite hard evidence to the contrary. he made a pro-active career of finding ways to attach pathological tendencies to mothers of dead babies. No one is talking about men at large on this thread - we are talking about one man inparticular and a surounding system and culture that took his word for it.

And however much you disagree is it really necessary to start telling other posters they are tedious, predictable and some sort of stereotyped man-hater? It's quite rude.

Sorry - a whole chunk of this thread was missing from the middle, didn't load or something...have now read it and my last post is referring to matters long since dropped.

Blu, I agree with what you say regarding RM, from all accounts the misogynist label does apply in his case.

It was the 'rife' aspect I was arguing against, and that hating women is the motivation behind discrimination against women.

Which I also agree does exist.

Psycho, what do make of the fact that he was allowed to get away with doing what he did for so long?

Not only did RM get away with it for so long, his life and family are still intact. I think he is pathological in his belief in his own supremacy and righteousness. And i don't think he is alone in his profession, though hopefully things are changing.

VVQ, if you're referring to the munchausens, I think he got away with it for so long, as there are elements ofit which ring true with many professionals who work woth parents.

Many would feel that they have seen elements of the described condition at some point in their professional lives.

Evidence for this to be a proven medical condition however, and criteria for diagnosis have not been sufficiently proved.

but i think he probably got away with it (if that's what you are referring to) as there seemed elements of truth to it to many professionals.

Ruty I'm sure you are right.

I in no way want to be seen as a RM defender.

My point was more about the belief in rife misogyny, and that the discrimaination of women is driven by a hatred of women.

I think the discrimination exists, but would largely be due to more varied and complex reasons them hatred of women.

Not so much that aspect, as the point that he was allowed to discredit and behave in such a manner so as to vilify many women, and remain supported by the GMC without being questioned himself.

Was his vilification of women not through his (overused and lacking in empirical basis) thoery of Munchausens by proxy? which as i said, rang true to some extent with many professionals, and therefore not sufficiently challenged.

How else did he villify women?
I am no RM expert, or apologist.

I thought his emphasis was more projected statistics and infant-health based, rather than psychological assessment, because he was a paediatrician, not a psychologist. Therefore, rather than suggest that the women had a psychological condition (a marginally more empathetic way of looking at it in any case), it was that it was that the mothers must have 'killed' their babies, because it was physiologically impossible for both children to have died from natural causes. To use a paediatrician to assess whether, and ultimately condemn, a mother was capable of such an act, without any background of psychology, is very wrong to me. Which is why I feel the GMC have been complicit.

Or have I grossly missed the point somewhere?

Oh sigh. No rest for the wicked. OK Psycho, if you insist, here's your list:

?Sometimes MN feels like the 'Wimmins Room' at Uni. (or how I imagined it, I didn't frequent) too busy enjoying my mixed sex friendships, with non women hating men and non men hating women.? Monday 17.54

?But to extrapolate that ? the whole system and most lawyer/doctors are misogynists, is tedious and predictable.? Monday 18.09

?I just disagree that it is rife and the basis of every ill of every women? Monday 18.22

?but not because most men and the system as a whole HATES women? Monday 19.10

?To me that's just another example of putting evry ill, every injustice done to any women down to misogyny.? Monday 20.15

That little collection of quotes (together with the playboy thread one, oh please don't ask me to dissect that!) created an impression (to me) of someone who was either very careless in her wording or wasn't really reading the thread properly, or who was either unwittingly or deliberately over-simplifying the arguments.

Apologies for the slightly non-sensical "it was that it was that"....

Again, I find it astonishing that the CPS, the Courts, and the GMC can deem it 'acceptable' for a paediatrician with no real background to note of regarding such issues, is allowed to be used in the process of deciding whether a woman is capable of murdering her children. Also to deem the non-medical background mother to be so incredibly intelligent so as not to leave any trace of evidence whatsoever that 'experts' in their field could find to prove that she had committed such a dastardly and/or deranged act. Twice.

Complicit, IMVHO.

Not just that VVV - he'd never even met her.

I mean, FGS. How can any doctor diagnose anything without actually seeing the patient? NHS Direct won't take the risk of diagnosing the common cold over the phone, but RM was such a superdoc that he could diagnose anything.

What's that about?

VVQ I think his evidnce in this case was focused on the statistics (or that part came to be viewed as the vital evidence), but I thought his 'expertise' and wider critricism had been for his propogation of the Munchausen by proxy theory, which has been discredited.

Caligula in my 'Wimmins room' comment I was indeed guilty of gross flippancy.

The other posts are taken out of the overall context of my overarching argument that discrimination of women cannot be solely attributed to hatred of women, and is in fact a combination of a variety of other complex reasons that cannot be summed up as misogyny.

I think you are in fact guilty of over simplifying, disregarding and failing to follow my argument.

Indeed your post to which you were so affronted when I pointed out the doctors motives were not necessarily misogynist, was contradictory in this respect, and if that was not your point then I fail to see the relevanec of that post as it is in fact mysogyny and not a power imbalance we are debating.

I was accused, and my professional integrity called into question at the same time, of glossing over arguments and not addresssing points.

You have still not yet clarified what it is in fact I have 'glossed over', but if you do i will try my best to explain my point, with I hope no fUrther personal insults.

My position is a perfectly acceptable one for an empowered feminist women to have,

and EVEN for a psychologist to have.

I hope you at least accept that.

Sigh. I accept that your position is a perfectly acceptable one to have Psycho (though I disagree with it). I just don't think you've argued it very well. The quotes I've taken appeared to me to be setting up an argument which hadn't been posed, in order to knock it down. A technique you also used on the playboy thread. So I wondered if you made a habit of it, that's all and it irritated me, hence my post. (It irritates me because it seems to me to take a thread backwards, as people all come in to explain how that wasn't their argument. I don't mind if people do it by accident, but when it's done deliberately, it just seems a great big time-waste to me.) My comment on this thread was informed not just by your posts here but on the playboy thread. Hence the perhaps disproportionate irritation.