Free Republic

BOSTON -- On the day Boston Children's Hospital celebrated being named "the number one pediatric hospital in the nation" by U.S. News & World Report, I was interviewing Dana Gottesfeld in nearby Somerville, Massachusetts. Dana is the young wife of Martin "Marty G" Gottesfeld, an imprisoned technology engineer/activist who used his skills to fight against medical child abuse committed at Boston's Children's Hospital. "That is so Boston," Dana observed Tuesday in response to the new ranking -- which is already splashed in multiple gold medallions across the hospital's website. It's all about power, prestige and pull in the top echelons...

Justina Pelletier is back in the hospital, according to a family spokesman. Pelletier, 16, spent 16 months at the center of a widely publicized custody battle between her family and the state of Massachusetts. She returned to her West Hartford home on June 18.

FULL TITLE: Girl held in hospital against her will for over a year during bitter custody battle is rushed to emergency room after being reunited with her parents A 16-year-old girl who was held in a hospital at the center of a custody battle for 16 months has been rushed back to hospital with severe back pain. Justina Pelletier was celebrating her birthday on Sunday with 100 friends and relatives when her condition worsened and her parents were forced to drive to Yale/New Haven Hospital to seek medical help. She has only been home for four months after the state...

FULL TITLE: Girl held in a hospital against her will for over a year celebrates homecoming with sweet 16 birthday party A Connecticut teen who was all but imprisoned in a Boston hospital for 16 months finally got the homecoming she deserved Sunday. At the same time, Justina Pelletier of West Hartford got the Sweet 16 party she couldn't have while forcibly separated from her friends and family. 'She's missed so many holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Easter and all the religious holidays,' Justina's father Lou Pelletier told FoxCT. Justina, who first checked in to Boston Children's Hospital in February 2013...

It’s hard to determine where the tragedy begins and the travesty ends. It’s a story that has gripped and enraged a nation. It’s a sordid tale of governmental tyranny, child imprisonment and endangerment, harmful and unethical medical experimentation, as well as a number of gross conflicts of interest. This is the story of a child, Justina Pelletier, who faced 16 long months of child abuse and incarceration at the hands of both Massachusetts government officials and callous medical personnel at Boston Children’s Hospital. Thankfully, due to the actions of Liberty Counsel, a Christian civil rights law firm, powerful media voices...

Huckabee has been Justina Pelletier's champion for the mast several months. Justina was abducted by Boston's Children's and Mass DCF on the grounds that her disease was all in her head - somatoform disorder.

Thronged by reporters, supporters, family, and friends, Justina Pelletier returned home Wednesday. Justina’s father, Lou Pelletier, said, “It’s an unbelievably emotional day… I’m still shellshocked. It has been 16 months of torture, but finally justice is being done.” Yet, the joy of Justina’s homecoming is dampened by a harsh reality. This young women has endured a torturous ordeal forced upon her by a powerful state agency that has left her physically and emotionally handicapped.

A Massachusetts judge ordered Tuesday that 16-year-old Justina Pelletier be returned to her Connecticut family. His ruling ended a 15-month odyssey that I believe showed that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Boston Children's Hospital were willing to disregard the rights of her parents and, in essence legally "kidnap" her. "We are stunned," Lou Pelletier, her dad, told me minutes ago by phone. "Justina called us with the news herself. We just want to thank everyone who helped us get our daughter home."

Justina Pelletier finally went home today. Justina is the 16-year-old Connecticut girl who has been held against her will by child welfare officials in Massachusetts for the past 16 months. Her story has resulted in a firestorm of controversy about the treatment of children with rare diseases and parental rights to make medical decisions for their children. The best coverage of the story has probably been provided by The Boston Globe, which did a series of stories a few months ago that can be found here: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/12/15/justina/vnwzbbNdiodSD7WDTh6xZI/story.html A story about the girl's homecoming can be found here: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/06/17/judge-orders-custody-justina-pelletier-returned-parents/mDWtuGURNawSuObO0pDX4J/story.html As the...

FULL TITLE: Home at last: Justina Pelletier pictured as she leaves state custody after 16-month battle between her parents and doctors Justina Pelletier, the Connecticut teenager 'kidnapped' by hospital staff 16 months ago, finally returned home to her family today. The grinning 16-year-old was freed from the secure unit she’d been held at after her parents dramatically won custody on Tuesday. 'I’m so happy. I’m so excited,' Justina said, as she celebrated her first taste of freedom. Wheelchair-bound Justina spoke briefly outside the Thompson, Connecticut, residential unit she had been living in for the past month just after 10am. As...

The family of Justina Pelletier, the teenage girl at the center of a national parental rights dispute, vows to pursue legal action against the state of Massachusetts for what they say was essentially an abduction of their daughter. Earlier this week, Massachusetts Juvenile Court Judge Joseph Johnston signed the order for Justina to go home following a 16-month dispute between her family and state officials. Lou Pelletier said in a text message, “This battle has been finally won. The WAR will not be won until we stop this from happening to ALL CHILDREN!!” justinapelletier23Pelletier, said, “It’s an unbelievably emotional day…...

In case you missed the exciting news, Massachusetts Juvenile Court Judge Joseph Johnston has signed the order for Justina to go home today. After months of fighting this legal battle on behalf of the Pelletier family, we are thrilled that Justina is finally returning home. Lou Pelletier said in a text message, “This battle has been finally won. The WAR will not be won until we stop this from happening to ALL CHILDREN!!” justinapelletier22bJustina said, “I’m so happy. I’m so excited, oh, my gosh. It’s such big news.” The Pelletier family looks forward to putting this 16-month nightmare behind them....

The Connecticut teen who has been in state custody for more than a year after her parents were accused of medical child abuse after disputing a diagnosis has apparently penned a note, giving a look into how she says she’s being treated. “They hurt me all the time push me all the time and more,” the purported note from Justina Pelletier says. It also says “[they] do not let me sleep vary [sic] much. “Hury [sic]!” Keith Mason, president of Personhood USA, a group helping lead the Free Justina Coalition, told TheBlaze that Justina gave the note to her parents...

Alan Dershowitz told Huckabee tonight that if everything we know about the #FreeJustina case is true, then this is a horrible abuse of human rights and of civil liberties. He said that Massachusetts law is clearly on the side of the parents, pointing out that if there is a conflict in medical opinion over a child under Massachusetts law, the dispute is settled by the parents, not the hospitals or the state. He even offered to help the parents get custody back of their daughter. Watch:

For the past several months, the Pelletiers have met face-to-face with Justina once weekly in supervised visits of no more than one hour. Now, Massachusetts DCF is denying the Pelletiers visitation with Justina in another blatant act of vindictive punishment. This new act demonstrates DCF's unwillingness to reunite the family and exposes the agency's lack of interest in the welfare of Justina or the Pelletier family. Instead, DCF is concerned with getting back at a family that spoke out against their heavy-handed custody grab. By prohibiting Justina from seeing her family, DCF is treating her differently than all other minors...

At the center of the seemingly incomprehensible case of Justina Pelletier lies one very simple, and unanswered, question: What did her mom and dad do to lose custody of their daughter in the first place? Gallons of ink have been poured on this story since last November, when a Connecticut TV station first reported the story of a sick teenager ripped from her family over a medical dispute between two hospitals. But having read every report on the case, including Judge Joseph Johnston’s ruling Tuesday, I can’t find a single claim — substantiated or otherwise — of bad behavior by...

We’ve now reached the “Watergate” stage of the Justina Pelletier debacle: What does Gov. Deval Patrick know and when did he know it? Justina is the former Tufts Medical Center mitochondrial patient seized by Boston Children’s Hospital and the state Department of Children and Families, who turned her into a somatoform subject. After reports in these pages Friday that she was being denied the opportunity to attend Easter Mass with her devoutly Catholic family, Patrick rushed out a letter to state Rep. Marc Lombardo (R-Billerica) about accommodations DCF was making. “I see in your letter that you continue to misunderstand...

“Why can’t Justina just come home?” Of course that’s the question Lou and Linda Pelletier are asking about the daughter taken from them more than a year ago. As a parent, isn’t it the question you’d ask? That’s not the question the Patrick administration wants people asking in the Justina Pelletier case. They want you asking why Justina’s parents won’t just accept Health and Human Services Secretary John Polanowicz’s family reunification plan. The Patrick administration doesn’t want you asking parenting or medical questions. They’re handling Justina like a political issue. How do I know? Because I saw Justina’s “reunion” plan...

Video Shows Conn. Teen Begging Mass. Judge To Let Her Go Home BOSTON (CBS) – The family of a Connecticut teenager at the center of a custody dispute with the state of Massachusetts has posted a video showing the teen pleading for the judge to let her go home. The video shows Justina Pelletier asking Governor Patrick and Judge Joseph Johnston to let her move back with her family. “All I really want to be with is my family and my friends and that’s all I want is to be with my family and friends back home,” she says. “You...

Justina Pelletier is going home. A Massachusetts judge ordered the 16-year-old Connecticut girl, who was taken from her family by child welfare advocates more than a year ago, to be returned to her mother and father effective Wednesday. The ruling caps a long-running medical custody dispute that began when two highly-respected Boston hospitals clashed over the girl's diagnosis. The case sparked national outrage, and led Lou and Linda Pelletier, of West Hartford, Conn., to wage a bitter legal battle. “To hear the news is overwhelming," Lou Pelletier told FoxNews.com moments after learning of the ruling. "Now we can certainly begin...