Morton’s Fork: Is a choice between two equally unpleasant alternatives (in other words, a dilemma) or two lines of reasoning that lead to the same unpleasant conclusion. It is analogous to the expression, “between the devil and the deep blue sea,” and “between a rock and a hard place”. "Have you heard of 'Moreton's Fork'? This a specious piece of reasoning in which contradictory observations lead to the same conclusion. One example could be the argument about how much time a child spends with his/her father. If the child wants to spend time with the father, it is because the father is such a good dad. If the child doesn't want to spend much/any time with him, the lawyers and courts say that it is because the mother has alienated the father, who is a great guy. So what happens is that the child is forced by the courts to spend that time with the father. This is because of a condition invented by lawyers and the courts which they call 'Parental Alienation Syndrome'. It is not accepted as a condition by the medical world, but lawyers know best, hey? (Who do they think they are?? At some point lawyers and the Bar Association must understand that, actually, they are not the overall experts in everything and have no right to start inventing spurious 'conditions'.) It gets 'interesting' when the reason the child doesn't want to spend that time with the father is because the father is abusive, not necessarily physically or sexually, but when he is emotionally and/or psychologically abusive. By the courts and lawyers inventing the anathema that is 'Parental Alienation Syndrome' they are potentially deliberately exposing children to abuse, with no recourse for those children or the other parent. Mothers, under the threat of losing the child permanently and possibly going to prison, then have to hand children to the abuser. You could say that this is child abuse by proxy, I know I do. I have spent the greater proportion of my career combating child abuse and yet I see the very safety net that is available to children to protect them from abusers being used to expose them to abuse.. And there's nothing that I, or the next generation of child abuse detectives, can do about it. It is THIS sort of abhorrent abuse of powers, wielded under a cloak of confidentiality by some Family Courts, that concerns me so greatly." Charles Cadwallader