'House of horrors' alleged at abortion clinic - U.S. news - Crime & courts - msnbc.com
A doctor whose abortion clinic was a filthy, foul-smelling "house of horrors" that was overlooked by regulators for years was charged Wednesday with murder, accused of delivering seven babies alive and then using scissors to kill them.
Hundreds of other babies likely died in the squalid clinic that Dr. Kermit Gosnell ran from 1979 to 2010, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said at a news conference.
Isabella Brooke Knightly and Austin Gamez-Knightly
In Memory of my Loving Husband, William F. Knightly Jr. Murdered by ILLEGAL Palliative Care at a Nashua, NH Hospital
Friday, January 21, 2011
New study finds court flaws in foster care system
New study finds court flaws in foster care system - San Antonio Express-News
A new study commissioned by the state found that thousands of children bounce around in the foster care system for years and never find a permanent home, partly because of flaws in the judicial system.
Conducted by Texas Appleseed, an Austin-based social justice group, the study examined data for all 21,000 children in long-term foster care in Texas in 2008. It revealed that children in state custody for more than three years experienced an average of 11 different placements, according to a news release issued by the group.
Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/New-study-finds-court-flaws-in-foster-care-system-969188.php#ixzz1Bfnuuzie
A new study commissioned by the state found that thousands of children bounce around in the foster care system for years and never find a permanent home, partly because of flaws in the judicial system.
Conducted by Texas Appleseed, an Austin-based social justice group, the study examined data for all 21,000 children in long-term foster care in Texas in 2008. It revealed that children in state custody for more than three years experienced an average of 11 different placements, according to a news release issued by the group.
Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/New-study-finds-court-flaws-in-foster-care-system-969188.php#ixzz1Bfnuuzie
More on the Secret Courts-Judge slams gag order on N.J. custody case
Judge slams gag order on N.J. custody case
The N.J. Superior Court in Morris County has placed a gag order on the parties involved in the N.J. Division of Youth and Family Services case against Christian homeschooling parents John and Carolyn Jackson.
As reported yesterday by WND, DYFS took the five Jackson children away from their parents on April 16, 2010, citing an imminent danger to the children after the youngest, 2-year-old Chaya, was hospitalized. The parents have been fighting in court to regain custody.
According to a source who asked not to be named, the judge hearing the case, Michael Paul Wright, imposed the gag order Wednesday afternoon upon the request of DYFS. WND called DYFS to inquire about the case early Wednesday afternoon, and posted a news story on the WND website early Thursday morning.
Read more: Judge slams gag order on N.J. custody case http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=253657#ixzz1Bfn16eO9
The N.J. Superior Court in Morris County has placed a gag order on the parties involved in the N.J. Division of Youth and Family Services case against Christian homeschooling parents John and Carolyn Jackson.
As reported yesterday by WND, DYFS took the five Jackson children away from their parents on April 16, 2010, citing an imminent danger to the children after the youngest, 2-year-old Chaya, was hospitalized. The parents have been fighting in court to regain custody.
According to a source who asked not to be named, the judge hearing the case, Michael Paul Wright, imposed the gag order Wednesday afternoon upon the request of DYFS. WND called DYFS to inquire about the case early Wednesday afternoon, and posted a news story on the WND website early Thursday morning.
Read more: Judge slams gag order on N.J. custody case http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=253657#ixzz1Bfn16eO9
Thursday, January 20, 2011
FAMILY PRESERVATION ADVOCACY: Adoption & Choice: God's Plan or Man's Plan?
FAMILY PRESERVATION ADVOCACY: Adoption & Choice: God's Plan or Man's Plan?
THURSDAY, JANUARY 20, 2011
Adoption & Choice: God's Plan or Man's Plan?
Yoon's Blur blog explores the issue of Adoption & Choice: God's Plan or Man's Plan? stating:
"I understand a God who gives people free will even though he is often pained and grieved by their choices in how they exercise that free will....referring to 'luck' or 'God’s plan' is such a cop-out to me that frees people from taking personal responsibility for their actions and their role, not only in adoption, but in life."
The author then makes these excellent points:
"As long as adoption is “God’s work” or “God’s plan” people will not feel compelled to reform it or to address the root causes of poverty and social and economic injustice that often serve as its substrate."
"And how many nut jobs have claimed the same thing–-that they were God’s tool to execute God’s plan or have used the Bible or other religious texts to justify heinous and unjust acts?"
I replied:
I totally agree that God does not orchestrate poverty or any other tragedy that lead to a family being torn apart by adoption and mothers suffering lifelong grief...I find it sanctimonious to claim that your child was "ordained" or "meant" to be yours...as offensive as Rosie O'Donnell allegedly telling one of hr adopted children that God had placed him in the "wrong" belly, as if God make mistakes!
HOWEVER, I am also uncomfortable with any assumption that relinquishing a child for adoption - or having one's parental rights terminated - is a "choice." I think you have set up and unrealistic either/or dichotomy and in doing do eradicated the most common scenario: coercion and exploitation.
Both domestically and internationally people's hardships are exploited in order to commodify their children to meet a demand for adoption. This is neither God plan, nor is it their choice...any more than being a victim of any crime if a choice or God's plan.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 20, 2011
Adoption & Choice: God's Plan or Man's Plan?
Yoon's Blur blog explores the issue of Adoption & Choice: God's Plan or Man's Plan? stating:
"I understand a God who gives people free will even though he is often pained and grieved by their choices in how they exercise that free will....referring to 'luck' or 'God’s plan' is such a cop-out to me that frees people from taking personal responsibility for their actions and their role, not only in adoption, but in life."
The author then makes these excellent points:
"As long as adoption is “God’s work” or “God’s plan” people will not feel compelled to reform it or to address the root causes of poverty and social and economic injustice that often serve as its substrate."
"And how many nut jobs have claimed the same thing–-that they were God’s tool to execute God’s plan or have used the Bible or other religious texts to justify heinous and unjust acts?"
I replied:
I totally agree that God does not orchestrate poverty or any other tragedy that lead to a family being torn apart by adoption and mothers suffering lifelong grief...I find it sanctimonious to claim that your child was "ordained" or "meant" to be yours...as offensive as Rosie O'Donnell allegedly telling one of hr adopted children that God had placed him in the "wrong" belly, as if God make mistakes!
HOWEVER, I am also uncomfortable with any assumption that relinquishing a child for adoption - or having one's parental rights terminated - is a "choice." I think you have set up and unrealistic either/or dichotomy and in doing do eradicated the most common scenario: coercion and exploitation.
Both domestically and internationally people's hardships are exploited in order to commodify their children to meet a demand for adoption. This is neither God plan, nor is it their choice...any more than being a victim of any crime if a choice or God's plan.
NCCPR Child Welfare Blog: Foster care in DC: An unflattering view of foster parents from a surprising source
NCCPR Child Welfare Blog: Foster care in DC: An unflattering view of foster parents from a surprising source
I’m sure Marcia Lowry, executive director of the group that so arrogantly calls itself “Children’s Rights” (CR) would insist she’s the last person to believe most foster parents are in it for the money. But a recent op ed column she wrote for The Washington Post raises questions about how she really views the motives of foster parents.
As I noted in a previous post to this Blog, back in December, I wrote an op ed column for the Post decrying the fact that the D.C. Council was pitting programs to help keep children out of foster care against programs to help kids already in foster care, while ignoring far better places to cut. Such places include D.C.’s overuse of group homes and institutions (like the residential treatment centers exposed by Washington CityPaper’s Jason Cherkis in an excellent story last week) and the lavish pay rates for foster parents - the highest such rates in the nation.
Specifically, D.C. pays at least $10,428 per year per child. For older children, it’s more than $11,280 per year per child. The money is tax free. The government also covers foster children’s health insurance through Medicaid.
CR itself admits, in its own study, that this is more than enough to cover not only the basics for foster children but also every toy, game, after school activity, movie ticket, amusement park ride, etc. In short, all of the things foster children (and children in general) should have. (Check out CR’s “technical report” for the study so see all the things CR believes the government should reimburse.)
But Marcia Lowry seems to think that unless foster parents are reimbursed by the government for every penny they expend on these items, the foster children won’t get them.
In a response to my op ed column Lowry wrote that
In his commentary [Wexler] went on to suggest that the District has “lavish[ed] . . . money on foster parents” and that it should consider cutting the “fat pay raises” for families willing to give abused and neglected children a safe home — and perhaps a few small pleasures of childhood, such as a toy, game or amusement park ride.
So, tell me Marcia: Do you really believe that D.C. foster parents are so greedy that if they were paid less than $10,000 per year per child, tax free, and actually had to dip into their own pockets to buy a foster child a teddy bear they wouldn’t do it? Would they really deny foster children they say they love and treat as their own “a few small pleasures of childhood” if those pleasures are not government-subsidized? And if that is what you believe, do you really think it’s a good idea to place children with people like that?
Are you not at all concerned that these lavish payments might attract foster parents who whine at great length even at the prospect of paying for a foster daughter’s sanitary napkins? (That’s not a hypothetical – it really happened).
Maybe you hold foster parents in such low regard, Marcia, but I don’t. I think the overwhelming majority are not in it for the money, and some are true heroes. I think they have no problem dipping into their own pockets a little for children they sincerely try to treat as their own – just as people who, say, volunteer to tutor inner-city children may buy some supplies themselves and don’t expect to be reimbursed for the mileage getting to and from the school. The whole issue of our “social contract” with foster parents is one that CR regularly avoids.
Marcia continues:
… it is the availability of foster parents that keeps children out of costly, ineffective and often harmful group homes and institutions.
That’s partially true. But it doesn’t follow that lavish reimbursement is required to get people to volunteer to open their homes to children. Indeed, when foster parents are surveyed about why they quit, money ranks low on the list. Ill-treatment and lack of respect from child welfare agencies ranks much higher. (That’s why, when speaking to foster parents, I always ask: If that’s how they treat you, imagine how they’re treating the birth parents.)
To the extent that there are “shortages” of foster parents, it’s almost always an artificial shortage, created by states taking too many children needlessly in the first place. Get those children back into their own homes and there will be plenty of room for children in real danger, without having to institutionalize them.
In addition, more and more states are finding that, using everything from Wraparound programs to “extreme family finding” institutionalized children can be returned directly to their own homes or the homes of relatives, bypassing what should properly be called “stranger care” homes entirely. So, in fact, lavishly-paid foster parents are not the only alternative to institutionalization.
It also is flatly wrong to imply that all foster children were “abused and neglected” before the foster parents took them in. In fact, children can be trapped in foster care for months before a judge ever decides if they actually were abused or neglected. The status of these children is roughly analogous to that of poor people who remain in jail before trial because they can’t make bail. (This distortion actually is at the root of a huge campaign by CR, something I hope to get to in a future post.)
Marcia goes on to argue that
…birth parents, foster families and relatives all need support when caring for a child, and they should not be pitted against one another as funding decisions are made.
Nice thought. It would be nicer, however, if CR’s lawsuit settlements didn’t constantly pit these very groups against each other.
Marcia’s Georgia settlement has led to diversion of funds to help alleviate the worst effects of poverty. In Michigan, her settlement has led to slashing of programs to help keep children safely out of the system in order to fund a foster care worker/child abuse investigator hiring binge. And, of course, Michigan is where CR’s war against grandparents has led to the expulsion of at least 1,800 children from the homes of grandparents and other kinship care foster parents – because they couldn’t comply with ten pages of hypertechnical licensing requirements. (That CityPaper story I mentioned also illustrates the harm of the licensing obsession, by the way.)
Marcia also hides behind kinship parents in order to propound another myth, the myth that foster parents are barely getting by. In fact, foster parents typically are middle-class.
I’m sure Marcia Lowry, executive director of the group that so arrogantly calls itself “Children’s Rights” (CR) would insist she’s the last person to believe most foster parents are in it for the money. But a recent op ed column she wrote for The Washington Post raises questions about how she really views the motives of foster parents.
As I noted in a previous post to this Blog, back in December, I wrote an op ed column for the Post decrying the fact that the D.C. Council was pitting programs to help keep children out of foster care against programs to help kids already in foster care, while ignoring far better places to cut. Such places include D.C.’s overuse of group homes and institutions (like the residential treatment centers exposed by Washington CityPaper’s Jason Cherkis in an excellent story last week) and the lavish pay rates for foster parents - the highest such rates in the nation.
Specifically, D.C. pays at least $10,428 per year per child. For older children, it’s more than $11,280 per year per child. The money is tax free. The government also covers foster children’s health insurance through Medicaid.
CR itself admits, in its own study, that this is more than enough to cover not only the basics for foster children but also every toy, game, after school activity, movie ticket, amusement park ride, etc. In short, all of the things foster children (and children in general) should have. (Check out CR’s “technical report” for the study so see all the things CR believes the government should reimburse.)
But Marcia Lowry seems to think that unless foster parents are reimbursed by the government for every penny they expend on these items, the foster children won’t get them.
In a response to my op ed column Lowry wrote that
In his commentary [Wexler] went on to suggest that the District has “lavish[ed] . . . money on foster parents” and that it should consider cutting the “fat pay raises” for families willing to give abused and neglected children a safe home — and perhaps a few small pleasures of childhood, such as a toy, game or amusement park ride.
So, tell me Marcia: Do you really believe that D.C. foster parents are so greedy that if they were paid less than $10,000 per year per child, tax free, and actually had to dip into their own pockets to buy a foster child a teddy bear they wouldn’t do it? Would they really deny foster children they say they love and treat as their own “a few small pleasures of childhood” if those pleasures are not government-subsidized? And if that is what you believe, do you really think it’s a good idea to place children with people like that?
Are you not at all concerned that these lavish payments might attract foster parents who whine at great length even at the prospect of paying for a foster daughter’s sanitary napkins? (That’s not a hypothetical – it really happened).
Maybe you hold foster parents in such low regard, Marcia, but I don’t. I think the overwhelming majority are not in it for the money, and some are true heroes. I think they have no problem dipping into their own pockets a little for children they sincerely try to treat as their own – just as people who, say, volunteer to tutor inner-city children may buy some supplies themselves and don’t expect to be reimbursed for the mileage getting to and from the school. The whole issue of our “social contract” with foster parents is one that CR regularly avoids.
Marcia continues:
… it is the availability of foster parents that keeps children out of costly, ineffective and often harmful group homes and institutions.
That’s partially true. But it doesn’t follow that lavish reimbursement is required to get people to volunteer to open their homes to children. Indeed, when foster parents are surveyed about why they quit, money ranks low on the list. Ill-treatment and lack of respect from child welfare agencies ranks much higher. (That’s why, when speaking to foster parents, I always ask: If that’s how they treat you, imagine how they’re treating the birth parents.)
To the extent that there are “shortages” of foster parents, it’s almost always an artificial shortage, created by states taking too many children needlessly in the first place. Get those children back into their own homes and there will be plenty of room for children in real danger, without having to institutionalize them.
In addition, more and more states are finding that, using everything from Wraparound programs to “extreme family finding” institutionalized children can be returned directly to their own homes or the homes of relatives, bypassing what should properly be called “stranger care” homes entirely. So, in fact, lavishly-paid foster parents are not the only alternative to institutionalization.
It also is flatly wrong to imply that all foster children were “abused and neglected” before the foster parents took them in. In fact, children can be trapped in foster care for months before a judge ever decides if they actually were abused or neglected. The status of these children is roughly analogous to that of poor people who remain in jail before trial because they can’t make bail. (This distortion actually is at the root of a huge campaign by CR, something I hope to get to in a future post.)
Marcia goes on to argue that
…birth parents, foster families and relatives all need support when caring for a child, and they should not be pitted against one another as funding decisions are made.
Nice thought. It would be nicer, however, if CR’s lawsuit settlements didn’t constantly pit these very groups against each other.
Marcia’s Georgia settlement has led to diversion of funds to help alleviate the worst effects of poverty. In Michigan, her settlement has led to slashing of programs to help keep children safely out of the system in order to fund a foster care worker/child abuse investigator hiring binge. And, of course, Michigan is where CR’s war against grandparents has led to the expulsion of at least 1,800 children from the homes of grandparents and other kinship care foster parents – because they couldn’t comply with ten pages of hypertechnical licensing requirements. (That CityPaper story I mentioned also illustrates the harm of the licensing obsession, by the way.)
Marcia also hides behind kinship parents in order to propound another myth, the myth that foster parents are barely getting by. In fact, foster parents typically are middle-class.
Former foster parent faces additional sex charges
Former foster parent faces additional sex charges
CALGARY HERALD JANUARY 20, 2011
Courts - Police have laid two additional sex charges against a former foster parent accused of sexually abusing boys under his care.
New charges of exploiting a minor while in a position of trust and procuring sex from a person under the age of 18 years old have been laid against Garry Prokopishin, 51, after a fifth complainant came forward to police.
Five boys formerly under Prokopishin's care allege they were in their mid-teens when they were molested between 2004 and 2008.
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Former+foster+parent+faces+additional+charges/4136459/story.html#ixzz1BdB7EcRV
CALGARY HERALD JANUARY 20, 2011
Courts - Police have laid two additional sex charges against a former foster parent accused of sexually abusing boys under his care.
New charges of exploiting a minor while in a position of trust and procuring sex from a person under the age of 18 years old have been laid against Garry Prokopishin, 51, after a fifth complainant came forward to police.
Five boys formerly under Prokopishin's care allege they were in their mid-teens when they were molested between 2004 and 2008.
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Former+foster+parent+faces+additional+charges/4136459/story.html#ixzz1BdB7EcRV
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