Are false abuse charges a common tactic?

Cathy Young writes in Reason magazine:

Child custody disputes are some of the bloodiest battlefields in the gender wars -- battlefields upon which allegations of spousal and child abuse are widely regarded as a nuclear weapon. But there are two opposite views of this problem. Fathers" advocates claim abuse allegations are routinely used to deny divorced fathers contact with their children and to poison children’s minds against their fathers, in what the activists and some psychologists call "parental alienation syndrome." Feminists argue that well-founded accusations of abuse are often dismissed and even turned against the accusing mothers.

She goes on to explain that the feminist poster girls for this cause have turned out to be frauds.