Williams does not sugarcoat how hard it was to complete her law degree as a single mom. She wrote, “To say that my last year of law school, with a newborn, and as a single mom was a challenge would be an understatement. Some days I was so mentally and emotionally fatigued that I did not leave my bed.” Williams was 23 when she gave birth to her daughter, Evelyn, and went into labor in the middle of her final exams. She shared on Instagram, “I immediately requested an epidural so that my contractions wouldn’t interfere with my Family Law grade.” What she describes as this “biting the bullet” experience became the norm for the final year of her rigorous academic program.

In an interview with Yahoo, Williams spoke candidly about the struggles she faced, saying:

Williams, and so many courageous women like her, are shattering the myth that women “need” abortion to succeed. While Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry claim that a woman’s success depends on abortion, taking the life of her preborn child in difficult circumstances, nothing could be further from the truth. Williams, like Dorothy Osborne and so many other single moms, says that her child is the ultimate motivation for her success.

One of the challenges Williams faced as a single mom was finding reliable childcare. She describes the many days she asked the Dean of Students’ office to watch Evelyn or otherwise took her baby to class with her. Many students with children can relate. While there are beautiful examples of professors going above and beyond to help students without childcare options, ensuring that campuses are a welcoming environment for students with kids would be even better.

​Williams is unafraid to admit her doubts, sharing:

Many commenters on Instagram were moved to tears, and Williams received well wishes from around the world. One follower wrote, “I have a similar story. I had to go out of school for a tad bit when I had my daughter and just now getting back. College is so hard being a single mom, it’s so tough, but this is so encouraging for me to finish med school. Thanks so much for this beautiful post!” Another wrote, “Thank you for being an inspiration for all those mothers who have heard that their child will be a huge road block in their lives. You are amazing!!”

In her viral post, Williams includes a moving tribute to her daughter: “Evelyn- they said that because of you I wouldn’t be able to do this. Just know that I did this BECAUSE OF YOU. Thank you for giving me the strength and courage to be invincible. Let’s keep beating all their odds, baby.”

Since graduating, Williams has moved to California for a position at an elite law firm in Los Angeles. The hard work is far from over, as she is currently studying for the bar. Judging by what she has accomplished so far, Williams’ many followers have no doubt of her continued success.

​https://www.liveaction.org/news/single-mom-graduated-harvard-law/

​Click image below for video:

When Milanian discovered the little boy, she immediately began clearing dirt from his nose and mouth, begging him to live. “Please don’t die,” she told him. “I will never leave you. I love you.” She tried to call 911, but kept getting disconnected, so she found a passing motorist, who helped connect her to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Milanian said she tried to comfort the baby boy the best she could, who had been crying, but worryingly, had stopped. When paramedics arrived, the little boy had a body temperature of just 80 degrees. At the hospital, he had to be treated for severe hypothermia. But the little boy, who hospital workers named “Baby Christian,” made a remarkable recovery. People from around the country sent in clothes, toys, and supplies for the baby boy, and Milanian made sure to come and visit.

As “Christian” lay in his incubator, she cried and wanted to adopt him. But because she had been featured heavily in the media coverage, she worried that the person who buried him would be able to find him if she adopted him. Still, she didn’t want to lose touch with the boy, and repeatedly reached out to child services. After a year, she was told that he had been adopted, and that she wouldn’t be able to see him. Milanian was crushed. But she took the experience with the baby boy and used it, founding a non-profit organization that helps orphaned children, Children of One Planet. But she never lost hope that she would meet him again. “I was hoping that he would find me, the same way we found each other that day,” she said.
​
Meanwhile, the little boy was adopted by a loving couple, and he grew up with no idea of what happened to him as a baby. Now named Matthew Whitaker, his father was a military veteran and law enforcement officer, and his mother worked in education and law. When he was 17, he finally learned the truth about his birth. But it mattered little to him. “I’m here today. I’ve lived a great life,” he said. “I was adopted into a great family. I couldn’t ask my parents for any more.” He currently plans to study journalism at the University of Arizona, and doesn’t have any ill will towards whoever it was that buried him alive. “If this was your best idea, to leave me here, then thanks, because you weren’t mentally fit to raise a child,” he said.

Whitaker’s reunion with Milanian came about after one of Whitaker’s mother’s friends wrote in to a radio station telling his story and asking for a 23AndMe DNA kit, so he could learn more about his ancestry. Whitaker agreed, and the results were read live on “On Air with Ryan Seacrest.” Patty Rodriguez, one of the show’s producers, heard about Milanian’s quest to find Whitaker again, and set about reuniting the two. When the day finally came, Milanian brought clothes and a card that read, “Happy Birthday! Baby Christian Mountain Angel Matthew.” Milanian sobbed in Whitaker’s arms when she finally saw him, while many onlookers likewise cried. “Finally, all my dreams came true,” she said.

The two drove together to the trail where Milanian found Whitaker, and looking at it, he became serious. “This could have been my grave,” he said. “You were wanted,” Milanian responded.

When Whitaker was originally found, officers from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department searched for his mother, trying to find the person responsible for burying him alive, umbilical cord still attached. “We believe the mother may be a scared teenager or young adult that simply did not know what to do,” a flyer from the sheriff’s department read. Sadly, this is not uncommon; new mothers facing an unplanned pregnancy give birth and sometimes panic, believing they have no other option. But fortunately, today, across the country, there is an option: Safe Haven laws.

Babies are sometimes still found dead in trash bags and dumpsters, abandoned by scared mothers. But Baby Safe Haven Laws give women the opportunity to surrender a newborn, no questions asked, usually at places like a hospital, fire station, or police station. Other states offer Safe Haven Baby Boxes, which give mothers the chance for even more anonymity.

While Safe Haven laws are common across the country — every single state has some variation of them — Indiana has gone a step further, installing the nation’s first baby drop boxes. Monica Kelsey, a firefighter and paramedic who had been abandoned as an infant herself, founded this program. In an interview with Live Action News, she explained why Safe Haven laws are not only needed, but save lives.

“In most states, a woman has 30 days after birth to safely surrender the child at any fire station, police station, or hospital with no questions asked,” she said. “In some of these states, the girl gets free medical care to assist with the birth of the child or any complications resulting from the birth. This law is a win-win situation for all parties involved. The mother walks away with zero chance of prosecution, while the baby has the opportunity to be adopted into a loving home, and a family open their hearts and home to the child for whom they’ve prayed.”

Kelsey’s non-profit organization raises funds for the baby drop boxes, which are “padded and climate controlled,” and when a baby is placed inside, the door locks and a motion sensor notifies emergency personnel, who are immediately dispatched to the scene. The baby is taken to the hospital, given a medical examination, and then placed with child protective services to find an adoptive family.

Safe Haven laws have saved countless lives, and give women a chance to give their baby life, without fear of repercussions or reprisal.

Whitaker’s story is a miracle, thanks to Milanian, but too many others aren’t found in time. Safe haven laws can truly mean the difference between life and death.

​https://www.liveaction.org/news/woman-reunites-baby-buried-alive/

“When my little brother Lucas was born, my parents were told that he wouldn’t walk or talk and the doctors even said he might not make it to his tenth birthday,” said Noah in a video for Great Big Story. “But today, a few months away from his tenth birthday, we’re doing our 15th triathlon together.”

Lissencephaly is a rare, genetic, neurological condition in which the normal folds and wrinkles of the brain are missing. As the brain develops in the fetus at around 12-14 weeks gestation, the nerve cells begin to move, but in children with lissencephaly, they don’t. This can cause failure to thrive, intellectual impairment, psychomotor impairment, seizures, and difficulty swallowing, among other issues. For children with severe lissencephaly, there is a life expectancy of 10 years with common causes of death including choking, respiratory disease, and seizures. Children with mild lissencephaly can have near-normal development and brain function.
​
“Despite all of his challenges, [Lucas] is the happiest little boy that you’ll ever meet,” said the boys’ mother Alissa Aldrich.

Noah pulls Lucas in a raft during the swimming portions of triathlons. During the bike portion he pulls him in a bike cart, and during the run, he pushes him in a running cart.

“I wanted to do this because Lucas can’t do things like we can,” said Noah. “He can’t really play sports so this is something we can do together.”

​In all, Noah and Lucas swim 200 hundred yards, bike three to five miles, and run about a mile together. Noah says he often wonders how much race is left to go.

“Noah is strong physically and especially mentally because he’s truly only doing these races for his brother,” said their father Brian Aldrich.

Nearing his tenth birthday, the family knows that Lucas has shocked the doctors, but there is always the question hanging in the air of how much longer they will have him.

“Every day is precious with that little boy,” said Brian Aldrich. “I try to soak in that experience because we don’t know how long the boys will be able to do triathlons together. Any one of them could be their last. What these boys accomplish gives me an immense sense of pride.”

“Noah and Lucas are an inspiration,” added Alissa Aldrich. “People see these two young boys and it gives them hope and it gives them encouragment to go out and tackle life challenges.”

All life is precious, valuable, meaningful, and worthy. These brothers prove that.

​​https://www.liveaction.org/news/brothers-15th-triathlon-doctors-survive/

 The underlying ideology of ‘family planning’ was distinctly eugenic in nature, and had morphed into the ‘population control’ movement of the 1960s and 1970s.  Whether or not these values and beliefs drive organizations such as Planned Parenthood to this day is precisely the concern that people have–and the “Jaffe Memo” is the most succinct display of those values in action, from their own mouths, that I am aware of.  Hence, the reason I use it so much.  (Better than asking people to read fifty books!)

The silence of the pro-abortionists on the “Jaffe Memo” seemed to suggest that it was an incontrovertible piece of evidence, but still, I had never tracked down the original just to make sure that what I had matched what Jaffe actually produced.  Never, until recently, that is.

In the main, the reproduction that is in wide circulation is pretty good.  However, in comparing the two, it became clear that there were some areas where even better accuracy would have given even better insight.  For example, on the old one, the words “Chronic Depression” are bolded, implying that it is some kind of sub-category.  But in the original memo, if you can believe it, it is actually just one more idea they had for controlling the population!  Yikes!

A more significant insight is gained by looking at the top left on the old one, where you see the two headings:  “Universal Impact” and “Selective Impact Depending on Socio-Economic Status.”  They kind of just float out there, and didn’t line up with anything.  In my mind, I sort of lumped them in with the other ‘bolded’ items, as being categories of some sort.  But, in the original, as interpreted by reading the full memo, it becomes more clear that what Jaffe is getting at is that some of the measures are only going to work on those with a lower ‘socio-economic status.’  That is–those things will be most effective when employed against black people.

The racial overtones are undeniable when one reads Jaffe’s full memo (although he does not write as one endorsing the elimination of the black race) and made emphatic when one sees, on the original memo, stated that he is deriving some of his ideas from William Shockley (a eugenicist), who undeniably saw such things in racial terms.  These attributions are not present on the version of the memo that is widely being circulated right now.

We do need to put one thing to rest, though.  People who have defended Planned Parenthood have done so by protesting that Jaffe was ‘merely’ tabulating some of the ideas that were ‘out there.’  As a case in point, here is what the archivist with the Rockefellers had to say:

It is not at all a coincidence that the Rockefellers would lie like this.  They are as complicit in this as anyone.  But that’s another blog post.

The deception is revealed merely by looking at the materials which they provided.  Assuming someone is just barely literate, they can quickly determine that the full memorandum, as well as the “Review of the Literature” by Elliott, et. al, are internal documents that have the explicit purpose of helping Planned Parenthood determine the shape of their actions.  No, the documents do not in themselves recommend any particular course of action… that’s true.. but neither do they condemn any particular course of action, and, worst of all, are perfectly willing to consider any of them, should they be convinced that they are viable and/or necessary!

Which is the whole point being made by people who use the “Jaffe Memo” to illustrate the evil that we’re maintaining is entrenched in the Planned Parenthood organization and mindset!

I dare say that if any Christian pro-lifer laid down a list of ideas on how to achieve their aims, and included on it something like, “forbid women from working”, the fact that no one picked that up and thought to implement it would make no difference.  If that person said, “I was just reviewing the literature!’ there would still be no mercy.   The hypocrisy from the pro-choice side is stomach-turning.

That the documents had the purpose that I have stated is, as I said, explicitly described:

I added the yellow line, because I am not certain that Supreme Court justice John Roberts has the basic literacy skills enough to see the connection.  Hint:  “as a basis for discussion of and action on […] by the Planned Parenthood national organization.”

From Jaffe’s own memorandum, we also see how his purpose was to generate ideas that they could seriously consider implementing.  Because he then goes on to reference the racial component to their considerations, I let the quote go on a little further, and underlined that part.

So, we can dispense with this ridiculous idea that “Jaffe was merely cataloging various proposals for population control advocated by others, not Planned Parenthood” and learning about the “sources of the proposals” actually supports the opposite view, that these are sick, twisted people.

The obvious question is this:  so just what did Planned Parenthood decide?  I think that if you take this memo as your starting point, and are guided by the principle “by their fruits you will know them,” you will be able to come up with some pretty good ideas.  Whether or not we ever find the same kind of documentation to prove it, is an entirely different story.

Without further ado, here is the corrected “Jaffe Memo” which you can also download as a PDF:  Jaffe_Memo__--_Horvath.pdf (211.5 KiB, 851 hits)

For your reference, here is the absolutely original memo… you can see why it has been reproduced… it is a bit hard to read:

As for the full memo, you can download and review it, here:  Original Jaffe Memo — Horvath Compilation

And for the Elliot ‘review of literature’ it can be read, here:  FPP-US-PopGrowthLitReview — Horvath

For real fun, track down the ‘sources’ for Jaffe’s brainstorming listed at the bottom of his memo!  Good stuff!

HT Dave Jaffe, Frederick Jaffe’s own son!

​http://sntjohnny.com/front/the-real-jaffe-memo/2686.html

“The consultant came in and said her bones were fractured in the womb,” Walters told The Sun. “[…] I was so scared when I first got told. They started telling me I could get an abortion. I was just petrified when I came home that day.”

The bones of those with the condition are delicate and can break very easily. The condition can also cause loss of hearing or sight, bone deformity, spinal curvatures, and problems with breathing. Brittle Bone Disease is difficult to live with on a daily basis, but people who live with the condition lead successful, normal lives. UK lawmaker Lord Kevin Shinkwin is one of those people.

“I can see from the trends in abortion on grounds of disability that the writing is on the wall for people like me,” Shinkwin said in 2017. “People with congenital disabilities are facing extinction. If we were animals, perhaps we might qualify for protection as an endangered species. But we are only human beings with disabilities, so we don’t qualify.”

Walters and her partner Lamar Anderson were told by doctors that in order to know for certain whether or not their preborn daughter had Brittle Bone Disease they would need to do testing that had the risk of causing a miscarriage. Walters turned down the testing and said she would carry her child to term regardless.

Walters gave birth to her baby girl, named Kyla-Shae, and doctors told her that the baby girl was healthy.

She told The Sun, “I said, ‘She doesn’t look like there’s anything wrong with her’ and I just started crying. I knew already somehow that there was nothing wrong with her and when she was born it just confirmed it.”

Kyla-Shae is now 18 months old, and while Walters is relieved and happy that her daughter doesn’t have Brittle Bone Disease, she is also angry that the hospital advised her to abort her child.

Doctors are, unfortunately, often quick to diagnosis conditions prenatally and abortions are performed without allowing parents the time to seek advice from specialists or undergo further testing. In reality, even if Kyla-Shae had been born with Brittle Bone Disease, her life would still be worthy of living. No parent should be told that their child doesn’t deserve to be born.

St. George’s Hospital told The Sun that while they couldn’t comment on Walter’s specific case, they “would welcome the opportunity to meet with her on an individual basis to discuss the concerns she has raised.”

By Nancy Flanders
​https://www.liveaction.org/news/mom-chose-life-doctors-misdiagnosed/

After her husband opened an investment firm and hired nine associates with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the couple knew they wanted to do more.

“These associates weren’t getting a lot of face-to-face time with clients, and the whole idea here was to bring people together,” said Wright. “And that planted the idea for the coffee shop.”

Bitty and Beau’s was born, a coffee shop staffed by people with disabilities that grew from a 500-square-foot shop to a 5,000-square-foot space in just six months. The employees have disabilities such as Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and autism.

​“There was no criteria for the hiring process. It was, ‘Do you want a job? Will you be dedicated to your job? Do you have a good attitude?’ And once we brought them in, we found out what they were comfortable doing, or what they were good at,” Wright said.

For this work, Wright was named CNN’s Hero of the Year for 2017. For Wright, her advocacy all started with her children.

“When you become a parent of a child with special needs, you are instantly thrust into becoming an advocate,” she said. “Trying to make people see the beauty in their lives that we see. I realized [the coffee shop] would be the perfect environment for bringing people together. Seeing the staff taking orders, serving coffee — they’d realize how capable they are.

​And while Bitty and Beau’s is a coffee shop, it’s so much more than just that.

“Bitty & Beau’s Coffee is a new lens, one that changes the way people see other people,” she explained. “It’s about human value. It’s about acceptance. It’s about inclusion. It’s about much more than a cup of coffee.”

The reality is that it’s extraordinarily difficult for a person with an intellectual or developmental disability to get a job, or be paid a fair wage. But Wright pays all of her employees over minimum wage, and they also can earn tips and get raises.

“Most of them have never had jobs before, yet they are extremely qualified and capable of doing them,” she said. “They are so grateful for the job, and they approach the workday with a lot of gratitude, and it’s infectious. When you have a serving staff that is positive and grateful, the customers pick up on that and they leave with a good attitude. It is a very happy, positive place.

“We try to set an example here that their work is just as worthy as typically-developed people. And they have dreams they want to work toward. One helped his family put down a payment on a house. Another is saving up for a car.”

As part of her award, Wright will be given $100,000, which will go towards expanding her business. But she hopes it will go much further than just Bitty and Beau’s.

“I hope that people see what’s happened here and go back to their businesses and say ‘how can we incorporate someone with a disability where I work. And so that will be what really changes the statistic,” she said.

When she accepted her award, Wright cried tears of joy and surprise and had an emotional message for her employees and her children.

“I am bringing this home to the 40 employees who work at Bitty & Beau’s because they are my heroes. And most of all to my two youngest children, Bitty and Beau, who are my inspirations,” she said. “I want you to know, because I know you are watching, that I would not change you for the world, but I will change the world for you.”

​https://www.liveaction.org/news/cnns-hero-year-children-down-syndrome/

​​In 1953, Mary S. Calderone became the medical director of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, where she remained in that position for eleven years. She resigned from Planned Parenthood after co-founding the Sex Information and Education Council (S.I.E.C.U.S.) in 1964 — an organization mired in controversy.

​On October 19, 1959, Calderone presented a paper before the Maternal and Child Health Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA) at the Eighty-Seventh Annual Meeting in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It was there that Calderone laid out her argument for legalizing abortion on the basis that illegal abortion was a “disease of society.”

The argument is ridiculous, but the information that Calderone presented to the APHA exposes the lie that led to the legalization of abortion to begin with, and that is how millions of women died every year from illegal abortions.
​
In her presentation, entitled Illegal Abortion as a Public Health Problem, the former Planned Parenthood director made it clear that she did not favor abortion and that she believed that abortion was a traumatic experience that takes a life, writing:

​Before they made millions committing abortions, Planned Parenthood admitted that abortion takes human life. A Planned Parenthood pamphlet from 1952 reads, “Abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun.“

​Another pamphlet from Planned Parenthood Federation of America also describes abortion as a procedure that “kills life after it has begun” and one which is “dangerous” to a woman’s “life and health.”

​In her remarks, Calderone quoted a psychiatrist who described the kind of woman who would seek an abortion not as a person in charge of her own choices (as it was sold to the public), but as “a sick person”:

To Calderone, this was the impetus for pushing for abortion’s legalization. To do so, she and her colleagues had to admit that a majority of illegal abortions were being committed by physicians. And to do this, they had to dispel their long repeated myth that millions of women died every year from illegal abortion.

“Abortion is no longer a dangerous procedure,” Calderone wrote. “This applies not just to therapeutic abortions as performed in hospitals but also to so-called illegal abortions as done by physicians.”

​She added:

​Calderone not only admitted that it was mainly physicians who were committing abortions, but also that women were getting referrals for illegal abortions from “physicians of impeccable standing,” not from back-alley quacks:

​Calderone was joined in her admission by former Planned Parenthood president Alan Guttmacher, who stated at the 1967 Harvard Law School Forum, “Seventy per cent of the illegal abortions in the country are performed by reputable physicians, each thinking himself a knight in white armor.”

Calderone and Guttmacher were not always in agreement with the mission of Planned Parenthood. In his memoriam of Calderone after her death, Harold I. Lief wrote of the two Planned Parenthood officials:

​Guttmacher was not even initially for the use of abortion on demand, stating, “Abortion should be a back-up procedure for failed or failure-to-use effective contraception. It must never be the primary method of birth control.” (Source: AMA Congress on Environmental Health, May 4-5, 1970 speech by Alan F. Guttmacher, Page 63.)

The question is, how did the numbers of illegal abortion deaths get so inflated to begin with? The answer lies with Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the early activists in the fight for abortion’s decriminalization.

Nathanson was co-founder of the National Association for the Repeal of the Abortion Laws (later known as NARAL),  and he also committed thousands of abortions before he repented and became pro-life.

​In the video below, filmed just before his death, Dr. Nathanson admitted responsibility for over 75,000 abortions, which he called “the greatest mistake of my life.” Nathanson admitted, “One of our strategies, in order to mislead the American public, was to deny what we knew to be true: that an abortion kills an existing human being. We denied that fact in an effort to mislead the American public and the courts of this land.”

​Nathanson admitted in other publications that he his colleagues lied about the numbers of women dying from illegal abortions, clarifying that “the actual figure was approaching one hundred thousand but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was one million.”

Calderone’s numbers were much lower than 100,ooo. She wrote:

As current society’s attitudes change toward legal abortion, supporters of the killing of preborn babies may be tempted to scare pro-life politicians by playing the “illegal abortion death” card again. This time around, when they make this false claim, we can remind them what one of Planned Parenthood’s early directors, along with one of the founders of NARAL, had to say about it.

By Carole Novielli

​https://www.liveaction.org/news/planned-parenthood-director-naral-founder-both-admitted-abortion-kills-human-beings/

Scotland Yard has been called in to investigate allegations that staff at Great Ormond Street hospital have been bombarded with violent threats and abuse over the case of the baby Charlie Gard.

Thousands of abusive messages, including death threats, have been sent to doctors and nurses at the children’s hospital in London, the chair of the hospital revealed. She said that staff were also facing abuse in the street. Families visiting their sick children had also been “harassed and discomfited,” they said.

The staff are being targeted by protesters opposed to Great Ormond Street hospital’s (GOSH) role in the treatment of baby Charlie, where doctors are seeking permission to turn off the youngster’s life-support machine.

Charlie’s parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, want the judge to rule that their 11-month-old son, who suffers from a rare genetic condition and has brain damage, should be allowed to undergo an experimental therapy overseen by a specialist in New York. Specialists at GOSH say the therapy would not help and that life-support treatment should stop.

Mary MacLeod, chair of Great Ormond Street hospital, said: “In recent weeks the GOSH community has been subjected to a shocking and disgraceful tide of hostility and disturbance. Staff have received abuse both in the street and online.

“Thousands of abusive messages have been sent to doctors and nurses whose life’s work is to care for sick children. Many of these messages are menacing, including death threats. Families have been harassed and discomforted while visiting their children and we have received complaints of unacceptable behaviour even within the hospital itself.

“Great Ormond Street hospital is in close contact with the Metropolitan police and we will do everything possible to hold to account anybody who is involved in this kind of deplorable behaviour.” Mr Justice Francis is scheduled to analyse the most recent evidence at a hearing in the family division of the high court on Monday.

MacLeod said: “Charlie Gard’s case is a heart-breaking one. We fully understand that there is intense public interest and that emotions run high. We recognise the tireless advocacy of Charlie’s loving parents and the natural sympathy people feel with his situation.

“However, whatever the strong emotions raised by this case, there can be no excuse for patients and families to have their privacy and peace disturbed as they deal with their own often very stressful situations or for dedicated doctors and nurses to suffer this kind of abuse.”

When asked whether police officers would be stationed outside the hospital, a spokesman for GOSH said: “From an operational and security perspective we cannot say anything further.”

The family of Charlie Gard has previously condemned the “abhorrent” threats made against legal and medical staff involved in the critically ill baby’s care. Their appeal for calm was made after the judge warned that “vile” abuse had been directed at GOSH staff. “We absolutely abhor any suggestion of any threats or intimidation against members of the judiciary, legal profession or medical profession,” a spokesman for Charlie’s parents told reporters.

Speaking on behalf of “the entire family and their supporters” Alasdair Seton-Marsden said anyone wanting to help the family should demonstrate peacefully, donate to the family’s fund or sign their petition, adding: “We absolutely abhor violence.”

Sir Keir Starmer, the constituency MP for the hospital, said: “Great Ormond Street is one of the world’s leading hospitals for children. The staff work tirelessly and with total dedication. Charlie Gard’s case is truly tragic and the whole nation sympathises with his parents. It is understandable that people feel very strongly about the case. But the abuse of staff at Great Ormond Street hospital outside the hospital and online is totally unacceptable. There is no place for this abuse and it has to stop.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/22/great-ormond-street-staff-receive-death-threats-over-charlie-gard

Denmark is one of several countries to contribute to “family planning,” specifically pledging $14 million to the United Nations Population Fund and the International Association for Family Planning. But Tuesday, Ulla Tornaes let slip that her motivations may not be entirely altruistic. Tornaes is a Danish politician and the former minister for development cooperation, and she spoke at the summit for the need to promote family planning in Africa and other developing nations.

​“Unwanted pregnancies have enormous human costs in developing countries – from very young women who must give up their basic education, maternal mortality,” she began. But rather than arguing that women need better access to obstetrical care or education, she argued instead that these pregnancies need to be prevented. And why?

“If the population growth in Africa continues as now, the African population will double from 1.2 billion people to 2.5 billion people by 2050,” she claimed. “Part of the solution to reducing migratory pressures on Europe is to reduce the very high population growth in many African countries.” Decreasing Africa’s population growth is a foreign and security policy priority for the Danish government, according to Tornaes. Many European countries have been grappling with high numbers of African refugees and asylum seekers, and so for Tornaes and other Danish politicians, the solution is evidently to prevent African babies from being born — even though asylum applications fell drastically from 2015 to 2016.

Tornaes is hardly alone; multiple politicians have called for the African population to be slowed down, including French president Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. Then there is also the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has pledged to spend $375 million promoting “family planning” in developing countries over the next four years. At the family planning summit, Melinda Gates argued that contraceptives help pull women out of poverty, saying, “Contraceptives empower women. And we know what empowered women do. They transform societies.”

But do African women even want the contraceptives and abortion that European countries are pushing on them? African pro-life activist and biomedical scientist Obianuju Ekeocha says no — that not only are women not seeking contraceptives and abortion in Africa, there are other needs that are going unmet while European countries focus solely on family planning. “They need to go back to the integral care of the person, where they were thinking of the Africans not as people who they can colonize culturally and impose their new views and values on them, but as a people who have their own views and values,” Ekeocha said. “What Africans want more than anything is for women to give birth safely… in a lot of these countries they can’t even get the most basic health care.”

In a video that has gotten tens of thousands of views on Facebook, Ekeocha debated a BBC anchor about this very issue:

As Ekeocha pointed out, there are multiple things that could improve the lives of African women, but contraceptives fall very low on that list — and birth control isn’t what pulls them out of poverty. “Well, you’re saying ‘should’,” Ekeocha began, addressing the claim that African women should have access to contraceptives. “But who are you to decide, if you don’t mind me saying? The thing is, there isn’t a popular demand, ma’am. There isn’t a popular demand. If you go to Africa, what people are asking for every day — because I was born in Africa, I was raised in Africa, I continue to go to Africa many times a year — you just speak to any ordinary woman, and I think contraception might be the tenth thing she says, if that.”

And while the BBC anchor continues to argue that contraception is a “basic human right,” Ekeocha pointed out that there were more pressing matters that would help African families. “When there is no food and there is no water, and there is a limited amount of aid — ” she began, only to be cut off by the anchor, who again argued that contraception would help solve those problems. “Well, that’s kind of a western solution, isn’t it?” Ekeocha responded. “If you speak to the ordinary woman on the streets of Africa, what is she asking for? She’s asking for food. She’s asking for water. She’s asking for basic health care. And contraception continues to be about the last thing she would ever think of.” She also criticized the western organizations for failing to properly counsel women about the potential side effects of contraceptives, while the women were told they needed the contraceptives to come out of poverty — only to then suffer the horrifying side effects.

Ekeocha also slammed the idea of contraception as an anti-poverty measure. “Someone from a western organization — one of these western organizations in Africa — came and put IUDs into [African women] and told them this is what you need to come out of poverty,” she said. “That is not what African women need. That is not the single indicator to come out of poverty. What Africans need is education, and opportunities, and good government.”

“There are Africans who don’t have access to education,” she continued. “What children are looking for is a way to get into school. Someone like myself, I was born in Africa, I was raised in Africa. My lifeline out of poverty was education. It was not contraception.”

Yet how many of these organizations are rushing to provide better educational opportunities for African children, or improved obstetrical care for women? Women aren’t being given better job opportunites, affordable day cares so they don’t have to choose between their families and a career, or maternity leave. Instead, it’s contraceptives, with the promise that this will solve all of their problems. Why is that?

Could it be possible that none of these efforts are born out of a desire to help women in developing countries, and are in fact a form of eugenics designed at preventing them from reproducing? After all, the United Nations Population Fund is the organization that helped China set up its coercive one-child policy, which led to women literally being dragged off the streets and forced into abortions. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation likewise funds pro abortion groups, and promotes abortifacients.

At best, even if well-meaning, this is an issue of western leaders exercising imperialism and colonialism over developing countries, as Ekeocha argued herself. But at worst, this could be a disturbing trend of eugenics, with very few people willing to speak out against it.

By Cassy Fiano | July 15, 2017 , 10:32pm
​https://www.liveaction.org/news/eugenics-real-reason-european-countries-pushing-family-planning-africa/

“He was given his name due its Celtic meaning, ‘Young Warrior’, and which he has lived up to from the moment he was born,” his mother wrote on her blog.

Harlequin ichthyosis is the most severe form of ichthyosis and can alter a person’s appearance since their skin is being pulled. It can affect ear development, the limbs, and the joints, and restricted movement can cause respiratory failure. Because of cracks in the skin, a person with the condition is at risk for life-threatening infections. In the past, the condition was considered fatal. But advances in care and knowledge about the condition have helped people survive, and recently a woman with the condition became the first person with Harlequin ichthyosis to give birth.

A 2011 study of 45 people with the condition showed a survival rate of 56% with most deaths occurring in the first three months due to either sepsis or respiratory failure. The study also found that those who died all had homozygous mutations while 52% of the survivors had heterozygous mutations – meaning the two mutations that caused the condition (one inherited from each parent) were not the same.

Born nine weeks early at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital, doctors had become concerned about Evan at around 27 weeks gestation, but after 3D and 4D ultrasounds were performed, he finally received the diagnosis at about 31 weeks. His parents didn’t know much about Harlequin ichthyosis but were determined to do everything they could to help their son, starting with his early delivery.

“It was a very intense feeling not knowing anything about his condition,” wrote his mother. “Luckily we were fortunate enough to have Yale Dermatologists that are experts in Ichthyosis. Even though his birth was an emergency situation, the doctors and nurses knew to be expecting a Harlequin fetus and had the appropriate care ‘waiting’ for him.”

Evan spent 58 days in the neonatal intensive care until finally being sent home.

“Ever since Evan has been born, we knew right away that there was no cure and there were only treatments,” his mother said in an interview. “[…] It was hard because we didn’t really know what to expect. And it was scary just hearing the information that was available at that time in 2010. Hearing that a lot of babies might not survive, I remember looking at him, though he was covered up, it was just a relief for me to see his tummy go up and down.”

Each day Evan maintains a very strict skincare protocol. His mother devotes a great deal of care and time to taking care of her son and making sure he is comfortable and healthy. Evan gets two 40-60 minute baths each and every day in order to exfoliate and moisturize. His skin grows at a rate 10 times faster than average, so he is constantly needing to wash the dead skin off. Moisturizer helps to prevent the cracking of his skin. In addition, he gets eye drops and eye ointment while he sleeps since his tight skin doesn’t always allow his eyelids to close.

In addition to caring for his skin, Evan needs help regulating his body temperature because he is unable to sweat. This also affects his body’s salt levels and his need for calories and fluids. He can easily become overheated and dehydrated, and eating can be difficult.

Because he was a preemie, Evan also deals with some developmental challenges. He is now five years old, and he is able to crawl and stand with help. He is learning to walk, and his mother said he is full of determination. He sees physical, occupational, and speech therapists, and is enjoying Kindergarten.

“With all things considering, Evan has a happy go lucky personality,” said his mother. “He is extremely patient, has a huge smile on his face during Aquaphor applications and can’t get enough splashing in the bath!! He is my hero.”

His father says that there have been occasions where people have made rude comments, but his parents are determined to live a positive life.

Evan recently became a big brother, and his parents have a great deal of hope for his future. He is exceeding expectations thanks to the devotion and hard work of his family and medical team. And thanks to those who came before him with the condition and those who figured out how to save and improve lives, he is not only surviving, but is a happy little boy with a bright future.

​http://liveactionnews.org/little-boy-rare-skin-condition-shows-life-always-worth-living/