WILL THE HEAVY HAND OF GOVERNMENT BE LIFTED?
by Sharon Rondeau
(Mar. 15, 2014) — A rally is scheduled for Monday, March 17, 2014 in front of a Boston courthouse to urge the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) to return custody of 15-year-old Justina Pelletier to her parents, who live in Connecticut.
In February of last year, Justina, who had an underlying medical condition, fell victim to the flu. Her doctors at Tufts Medical Center then recommended that she obtain treatment at Boston Children’s Hospital, which her parents facilitated. However, after Justina was admitted, the physicians at BCH disagreed with Tufts physicians that Justina’s underlying malady was mitochondrial disease. When her parents disagreed and sought to discharge her, the doctors at BCH notified Massachusetts DCF, which took custody of Justina in the hospital.
The Boston Globe reported of Justina’s plight that BCH doctors “kept her in a locked psychiatric ward for nearly a year” because they allegedly believed that Justina suffered from a psychiatric disorder rather than mitochondrial disease.
Her parents have been allowed one-hour visits each week under heavy supervision of DCF personnel. Justina’s father, Lou, has described her present condition as significantly worsening, as she has not received the medicines she was given by Tufts for mitochondrial disease.
Prior to becoming ill with the flu, Justina was involved in competitive ice skating. She is now wheelchair-bound and has been provided no education while in the custody of DCF. According to Berman, Justina had attended the Ben Bronze [sic] Academy in her hometown of West Hartford, CT, which is also this writer’s hometown.
A practicing Catholic, Justina has reportedly “missed Christmas Eve, Christmas and Easter masses and been denied access to a Priest.”
On March 5, investigative reporter Beau Berman of FOXCT reported that Connecticut state legislators drafted a letter to the Connecticut Department of Children and Families director to ask for her intervention aimed at bringing Justina home.
Lou Pelletier appealed to members of the Massachusetts legislature on Thursday, March 6.
BCH physicians had reportedly recommended that Justina enter foster care. On February 24, a Massachusetts judge ruled that Justina would go to a foster care facility “with no medical treatment,” after which Justina’s mother, Linda, passed out and had to be evacuated from the courthouse by ambulance.
On March 10, Reuters reported that while medical treatment for Justina has reverted back to Tufts as a result of a court hearing on March 6, “Massachusetts DCF has offered no plan to release Justina to her family.” The pro-life organization Personhood USA is now involved, as is Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, who pre-recorded a segment on Justina’s story for the Dr. Phil Show with Justina’s parents in Los Angeles which will air on Monday.
Mahoney and Keith Mason of Personhood USA launched the “Free Justina” campaign, and Mahoney became a spokesman for the Pelletier family. Liberty Counsel is providing legal guidance.
While Massachusetts DCF now says it wants to return Justina to Connecticut, it did not specify that its goal was to return her to her parents.
A gag order had been placed on concerned parties in November which Lou Pelletier “violated” last month, although pending charges for his decision to speak to the media have reportedly been dropped. Upon speaking with Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly, Pelletier told her, “My daughter’s life is now at stake.”
Justina’s parents are reportedly financially distressed because of her long-term medical institutionalization.
Monday’s rally supporting Justina’s return to her parents’ custody will take place outside of the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse at 24 New Chardon Street, Boston, MA, at 12:30 p.m. EDT.
Over the last 18 months, The Post & Email has reported on the case of the Henderson family, whose eight children were seized by Los Angeles DCFS despite no evidence of neglect or abuse. Three of the children are now in adoptive homes with reported questionable conditions. DCFS had indicated that the mother, Erica Henderson, could regain custody if she divorced her husband, Jeffrey; however, after the parents separated months ago, the adoptive process was accelerated, with the parents left penniless, unemployed, and their family shattered.
Others have reported having been in the foster care system and to have become targets of DCF once they gave birth to children of their own.
Boston is the location of the famous Tea Party of 1773, during which crates of tea were thrown overboard by colonists dressed as Indians, “urged on by a crowd of cheering townspeople,” to protest the heavy taxation imposed by King George III. The Declaration of Independence and American Revolution followed, after which the 13 colonies and subsequent states grew into the most prosperous and generous nation in the free world.
Under the regime of Barack Hussein Obama, Christians, pro-life groups, veterans, Second Amendment advocates and religious organizations have been persecuted by the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
When medicine advances enough doctors will discover the real medical reasons for the symptoms that are labelled “mental disorders.” Currently someone is regarded with suspicion when it is known that they have a psychiatric diagnosis. People in government make primitive assumptions about child abuse as the cause, along with other outdated ideas.