Free Republic

“Star Wars” actor Paul Grant has died after suddenly collapsing in the street outside London’s King’s Cross train station. Grant, who has held roles in two of the biggest movie franchises in existence, was found unresponsive on the ground outside the station on Thursday, according to Sky News. Despite best efforts to resuscitate Grant, he was declared brain dead by doctors following the collapse, the outlet noted. He had been kept alive on life support since his collapse. However, the actor was pronounced dead early Monday morning after his family ultimately opted to remove him from life support due to...

Actor and professional wrestler Dylan Postl weighs in on Disney thinking of replacing the seven dwarfs of 'Snow White' on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'

A new drug offers children with dwarfism the chance at a life with fewer medical issues and closer-to-average height — but there is controversy over whether normalizing dwarves’ bodies is ethical. A study published this month in the journal the Lancet reported that a once-daily injection of growth drug vosoritide “is an effective treatment to increase growth in children with achondroplasia,” which is the most common form of dwarfism. “The main purpose of the drug is to improve the quality of life for children with achondroplasia,” Dr. Melita Irving, a consultant clinical geneticist and the leader of the UK trial...

Astronomers searching the sky with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered an odd little dwarf galaxy in our very own backyard -- a mere 7 million light years away.. ... Given that these isolated dwarf spheroidal galaxies are so hard to find, there could be many more of these fascinating galactic fossils just hanging out in the darkness of our own intergalactic neighborhood, just waiting to be found,

EL PASO, Texas — Starbucks Coffee Company has agreed to pay $75,000 and provide other significant relief to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today. The EEOC had charged Starbucks Coffee Company with unlawfully denying a reasonable accommodation to a barista with dwarfism at one of its El Paso stores and firing her because of her disability.

Canberra, Australia (LifeNews.com) -- The man who did a late-term abortion at 32 weeks into a woman's pregnancy on an unborn baby diagnosed with dwarfism is defending his decision. Lachlan de Crespigny has been prevented by the courts from talking about the case until now, and he told Australian media he has no regrets about doing the controversial abortion.  Five doctors at Royal Women's Hospital were involved in the February 2000 abortion and the Australia Medical Practitioners Board ultimately decided against subjecting them to formal disciplinary hearings.The abortion has drawn strong opposition form the pro-life community and Liberal senator Julian...

(Video link below) PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. - One woman's pregnancy could come close to breaking a state record. Expectant mother Cristianne Ray may soon set the bar, and it's all because she falls much shorter than average. Cristianne's already made it to week 35 of her pregnancy, making weekly trips from Puyallup to Seattle to see specialists. "I don't know, it's been different. I've grown a lot," she said. "My doctor, every time I see her she says, 'oh my gosh, your stomach's so big.'" Any pregnant woman may feel that way, but Cristianne gained almost 40 percent of her...

Aborted baby 'not a dwarf' By GERARD McMANUS 07Apr02 THE 32-week-old baby who was terminated because doctors at the Royal Women's Hospital believed it would be born with dwarfism, may in fact have been normal, a federal MP has claimed. Handwritten theatre nurse notes written at the time the baby was delivered state that the "the baby doesn't look small" and other medical records also suggest there was considerable ambivalence about whether the baby girl was a dwarf or not. Senator Julian McGauran, who has been demanding a Medical Practitioners Board inquiry into the case, has told federal parliament that...

IT was an explosive case from the moment the patient walked in the door of Melbourne's Royal Women's Hospital. She was just four weeks short of delivering a baby diagnosed with skeletal dysplasia, a form of dwarfism that severely stunts growth but not necessarily the capacity to live a richly fulfilling life. With a history of psychiatric illness made more profound by the torment and wretchedness of carrying a disabled child, the woman refused to countenance adoption. She was so acutely suicidal that doctors "had rarely, if ever, seen a woman so seriously affected by the prospect of fetal malformation"....

An anti-pornography "church" is running a TV commercial saying that pornography stunts your growth and they're using a dwarf as "proof". Apparently they're using PETA-like methods of communication--shocking people to get their point across. How about if I went around saying "Christianity stunts your mind"? It doesn't, but you wouldn't know it from the antics of these guys. There are many great people in this world who happen to be short-statured but this "church" feels they need to exploit them to get their message across. Would Jesus approve? http://xxxchurch.com/patrol/commercial.asp