Free Republic

Say what you want about pro-life incrementalism, but one thing about the movement to ban abortions at 20 weeks is undeniable: it has exposed just how entitled abortionistas feel to the “mainstream” mantle even as they refuse to give an inch from their extremism. Last week, Cosmopolitan’s Liz Welch relayed the testimony of Vanessa Riley to the Texas legislature opposing the state’s new protections for pain-capable unborn children. Her “devastating” account is supposed to prove how these “harsh” laws “can prevent women from getting the care they need. Riley defines herself as a pro-choicer committed to never having an abortion...

Twenty-week abortion bans shine light on the practice of disability discrimination abortion. Elective abortion occurs when a pregnant woman does not want to have a child. Disability discrimination abortion occurs when a particular child, initially wanted, is aborted because that child has a disability. Disability discrimination abortion is similar to gender discrimination abortion, which is when a particular child is aborted because that child is a boy or is a girl. If most disability discrimination abortions occur after 20 weeks gestation, then laws prohibiting abortion after 20 weeks gestation, except for medical emergencies not including fetal disabilities, will have the...

PHILADELPHIA, A US Airways flight in Philadelphia was canceled when passengers became outraged about a blind man and his seeing-eye dog being kicked off the plane. Albert Rizzi said flight attendants removed him and his dog from the Wednesday flight from Philadelphia International Airport to Long Island MacArthur Airport in Islip, N.Y., because the dog became agitated during a delay on the tarmac, KYW-TV, Philadelphia, reported Friday. "What I'm concerned about is that there are a tremendous number of individuals in the disabled community who might not have the stamina, the strength, the confidence to stand up for their rights...

Japanese company Nano Optonics Energy displayed its caterpillar-tracked UNiMO (UNIque MObility) micro EV drive train at the International Robotics Exhibition in Tokyo last week, promising new levels of personal mobility for wheelchair users. There are two models of the UNiMO: the US$18,000 Unimo Grace which is now available for purchase and the US$10,000 UNiMO Sport which will be available by the end of this month (November 2013). Even more importantly, the 400 W drivetrain designated E-001 is being made available to other manufacturers to create their own micro EVs. The UNiMO Grace is a stylish armchair-on-wheels that looks like it...

The United States is the world leader regarding the rights of people with disabilities. But a United Nations treaty seeks to use Americans’ concern for the disabled to undermine U.S. sovereignty.It’s time for proponents of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) to come clean about this treaty. They claim, falsely, that it would help Americans with disabilities who are traveling abroad. But as Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said at The Heritage Foundation recently: "Ratification is not going to materially change the degree of compliance by foreign nations, but it is going to open avenues to undermine...

A heavyweight rock crusher's disability claim is being slammed by critics as more mental than physical. Glenn Taylor — who infamously filmed his ability to knock over an ancient 2,000-pound sandstone with his bare hands — filed a lawsuit claiming "debilitating" physical injury weeks before the stunt's filming, it has been revealed. Taylor, seen destroying a 200 million-year-old goblin sandstone formation in Utah's Goblin Valley State Park last week, filed a personal injury lawsuit last month claiming to have been disabled after a car crash four years ago.

(Vatican Radio) It was a moving scene this morning in the chapel of the Serafico Institute of Assisi, when Pope Francis warmly greeted a room full of children and young people with disabilities and their caregivers. The Pope approached each of the residents and held their hands, caressed their faces, signed the Cross on their foreheads and often kissed them on the cheek. One of the residents also kissed the Pope’s pectoral cross. After words of welcome from the mayor of Assisi, Claudio Ricci, and the president of the Serafico Institute, Francesca Di Maolo, the Pope addressed the people...

This article was published a couple of years ago, but it is important in highlighting prejudice against people with disabilities that was common in the past. (....)There are numerous stories of German doctors under the Nazi regime using disabled patients as subjects for horrific medical experiments. But an obsession with experimenting on disabled people was not confined to Germany. Hospitals in Britain and America were also keen to experiment on disabled people in the first half of the 20th century(....)Some British psychiatric patients were given malaria to see if it would cure their mental illness. Barbiturates were often administered in...

U.S. Army veteran Jared Goering was kicked off the North Wildwood boardwalk Thursday night because he had his service dog by his side. A North Wildwood police officer issued Jared and his wife a summons because of the dog. Goering said, “I expected to get more respect from him because of the jobs that we both have to do." "He mockingly asked if all veterans get service dogs," said Jared’s wife, Sally Goering, “his dog is medically necessary and he is a service dog." Jared and his wife Sally say the incident occurred on the 26th street North Wildwood boardwalk....

President Obama took his case for ending the sequester to hundreds of disabled veterans Saturday, saying he protected their benefits from the “reckless” cuts to the federal budget but suggesting next year might be different. “It’s hurting our military. I made it clear that your veteran’s benefits are exempt from this year’s sequester,” the president said to the applause of hundreds at the Disabled American Veterans' convention in Orlando, Fla. “But I want to tell you going forward the best way to protect the VA care you have earned is to get rid of this sequester altogether.” The president...

What is wrong with this picture? It's one of those things that you don't get, until you get it. Unless you are eternally empathetic, you look at this photo and don't see much wrong at all. To Anne Belanger, mother of Miles, the photo is unbearable to look at. When the class portrait for her son's Grade 2 class came home, she opened it excitedly, and immediately shoved it back in the envelope. She couldn't look at it. It broke her heart. Anne's son, Miles, has Spinal Muscular Atrophy. At the age of 13 months, his parents were told that...

A disabled South Carolina man was pushed off a moped and then beaten with his own prosthetic leg by an assailant who was arrested early today for assault, cops charge.

They are 1 percenters who are 100 percent despicable. Some wealthy Manhattan moms have figured out a way to cut the long lines at Disney World — by hiring disabled people to pose as family members so they and their kids can jump to the front, The Post has learned. The “black-market Disney guides” run $130 an hour, or $1,040 for an eight-hour day. “My daughter waited one minute to get on ‘It’s a Small World’ — the other kids had to wait 2 1/2 hours,” crowed one mom, who hired a disabled guide through Dream Tours Florida.

Hiding The Unemployed: Disability And The Politics Of Stats Wendy McElroyApril 26, 2013 Some statistics cannot be understood without being set within a political framework, because they reflect politics as much as, or more than, they do reality. The unemployment rate is an example and a cautionary tale. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the seasonally adjusted official unemployment rate for February fell to a four-year national low of 7.7%. While the White House cautiously congratulated itself, Republicans quickly pointed to what is often called the real unemployment rate; it stood at 14.3%.The BLS looks at six categories...

I am a disabled combat veteran. I served in Iraq and worked in Afghanistan. I took an IED because my country asked me too, and I was injured by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. I have a Purple Heart and an ARCOM with Valor. I fully expect to be treated differently when I am visiting another country - when I am in America I expect equality and toleration; but what I experienced today is something that I never would have thought I'd have to go through in my own country. The country I fought for! I am a skydiver with...

Mililani - For half a dozen former Kipapa Elementary School students, room P-10 was a little class of horrors. Hawaii News Now has learned that the families of six disabled students have now come forward with allegations of abuse by staffers at this Mililani School. The latest allegations come from the parents of an autistic girl who say school staffers force fed their daughter, often to the point of vomiting. Court documents filed in U.S. District Court say that in some instances the girl -- who often had trouble eating -- was forced to eat food she threw up. People familiar with the case say the girl also was...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday linked outgoing Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) to one of the “saddest” Senate votes in years and suggested DeMint’s values won't be missed on Capitol Hill. Pelosi criticized the resigning South Carolina lawmaker and other GOP senators for voting Tuesday against Senate ratification of a United Nations treaty on rights for the disabled. “For them [DeMint and other treaty opponents] to slap the face of our veterans, of people with disabilities, of families with children with disabilities, that was one of the saddest days,” Pelosi said in the Capitol, taking care to avoid...

Lately, you’ve probably been asking: “What ever happened to Rick Santorum? The guy who ran for president in the sweater vest? The one who compared homosexuality to bestiality and did 50 push-ups every morning?” It’s certainly been on my mind. Santorum is still in there swinging. Lately, he’s been on a crusade against a dangerous attempt by the United Nations to help disabled people around the world. This week, he won! The Senate refused to ratify a U.N. treaty on the subject. The vote, which fell five short of the necessary two-thirds majority, came right after 89-year-old Bob Dole, the...

Rights: The Senate is considering a treaty which says "disability is an evolving concept" and which would infringe on U.S. sovereignty and the right to raise our children as American families see fit. Those who thought that the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) adequately guaranteed the rights of the handicapped to have access to all facets of American life were apparently wrong. The U.S. Senate is considering ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which President Obama signed in 2009 and which goes well beyond mandating wheel-chair ramps for public buildings. CRPD doesn't even bother to...

Rights: The Senate is considering a treaty which says "disability is an evolving concept" and which would infringe on U.S. sovereignty and the right to raise our children as American families see fit. Those who thought that the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) adequately guaranteed the rights of the handicapped to have access to all facets of American life were apparently wrong. The U.S. Senate is considering ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which President Obama signed in 2009 and which goes well beyond mandating wheel-chair ramps for public buildings. CRPD doesn't even bother to...