In
Murder, Medicine, and Motherhood, Emma Cunliffe analyzes the intersection of current medical research, the criminal justice system, and current social ideology. She does so by considering the roles that medical research and cultural ideas about motherhood serve in a criminal proceeding where a mother has been accused of murdering her child in its infancy. Cunliffe performs a case study of the trial of Kathleen Folbigg, a New South Wales mother accused of intentionally smothering her four infant children at different times throughout a decade. Cunliffe begins her book by introducing readers to Kathleen Folbigg and her family. She then describes the uncertain nature of medical research regarding unexplained infant death. After a detailed analysis of the state of pediatric forensic pathology at the time of Folbigg’s trial, Cunliffe describes the expert testimony actually presented at Folbigg’s trial. She focuses on the ways by which experts presented uncertain theories as uncontested facts. Cunliffe uses the expert witness testimony as a segue to explore how cultural ideologies about motherhood affect emerging hypotheses medical research. She extends this analysis to include the effects of societal beliefs about motherhood on jurors, the press, and the public at large. Finally, Cunliffe analyzes the press coverage of Folbigg’s trial in two local newspapers to demonstrate the biased nature of the information received by the public. Cunliffe manages to keep each of her assertions separate, well laid out, and well supported by empirical research. Her book is ideal both for lay and academic readers, as it presents provocative questions and begs for a dialogue about the interconnectedness of the medical, criminal, and media fields. This research is especially relevant for future studies of adolescent motherhood, as these mothers are structurally prevented from obtaining the social and economic opportunities that allow them to fit the traditional mold of motherhood. Society consequently labels these mothers as “deviants” or inadequate (see Weir
2003, p. 320). According to Cunliffe’s study, this may place these mothers at a higher risk of criminalization for the deaths of their infant children. …
