~ “I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts.” Ronald Reagan.
Justina Pelletier, the 16-year-old Connecticut girl taken from her parents more than a year ago after two hospitals clashed over her diagnosis, told Fox News’ Mike Huckabee in an emotional interview Saturday that no child should go through the ordeal she went through at the hands of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families.
‘I’m like, ‘Yeah, this should never happen again to anybody.’ To any kid or any person. They should never be put through what I’ve been put through, Pelletier said on ‘Huckabee’ Saturday evening. ‘And they were so mean and nasty to mean and they were being mean and terrible to my family also. And no-one should be put through that….’
Justina Pelletier was reunited Wednesday with her sisters and her dog, Roxy. From left: Jessica, Justina, Julia, Jennifer. Photograph: Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
When Justina Pelletier arrived home early Wednesday afternoon in the passenger seat of her mother’s sport utility vehicle, her father, Lou, made a cradle with his arms and carried her through the front yard.
The 16-year-old girl with the shiny sunglasses and a bow in her hair cannot walk on her own anymore. But on Wednesday, for her family, crossing the threshold of her house in any fashion was a big enough step.
For the first time in 16 months, Justina would sleep in her own bed. She was once again her parent’s daughter not just by blood, but by law.
‘She wants a hamburger on the grill, and she wants to sit down and lie on the couch and watch a movie with the family,’ said Justina’s mother, Linda….
The family’s primary focus is to help Justina regain her health.
As far as what the family and Justina was forced to endure at the hands of an overreaching government in collusion with medical facilities that crossed the line the past 16 months, Linda and Lou Pelletier “intend to press their argument that hospitals are too eager to accuse families of medical child abuse without sufficient reason, seizing children from their mothers and fathers.”
Justina Pelletier, the Connecticut teen taken from her family more than a year ago by Massachusetts officials after her parents took her to a hospital for help, made a tearful plea to the Bay State family court judge who holds her fate in his hands.
In the 45-second, videotaped plea, first posted on a Facebook page set up by supporters of the 15-year-old, Justina is seen sitting in a chair and pleading plaintively with Massachusetts juvenile court Judge Joseph Johnston.
‘All I really want is to be with my family and friends,’ the girl says, her voice faltering at times. ‘You can do it. You’re the one that’s judging this. Please let me go home….’
Boston, MA —Today, Massachusetts Health and Human Services (HHS) filed a motion for review of reconsideration and dismissal in the case of Justina Pelletier. This action follows Liberty Counsel’s motion to return Justina home. Today’s motion indicates that HHS is in agreement to return custody of Justina to her parents.
Liberty Counsel anticipates a court order from Judge Johnson in the near future releasing Justina into the custody of her parents, Lou and Linda Pelletier….
“The embattled Chief of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF), Olga Roche, has resigned following the controversy surrounding the costly mismanagement of Justina Pelletier’s case and the tragic recent deaths of three children.Now, under intense scrutiny by the Massachusetts General Assembly. House Speaker Robert DeLeo (D), who called for Roche’s resignation, told radio station WBUR:
‘DCF is an agency in crisis; and we must immediately undertake the difficult, but crucial, task of creating an effective structure of protection and care for our most vulnerable children….’”
As reported by Human Events, a psychiatric nurse at Boston Children’s Hospital has filed a mandated reporter complaint against the hospital.
Kathleen T. Higgins, R.N. noted in her complaint against the hospital to now former DCF Comm., Olga Roche, that Justina Pelletier was placed and in a locked psychiatric unit against her will once diagnosed with Somatic Symptoms disorder.
“In a letter dated Jan. 8 she wrote: ‘Since April 23, 2013, I have been engaged with Linda, Lou and Jennifer Pelletier, the parents and eldest sister of Justina Pelletier, to facilitate Justina’s discharge from Bader 5, inpatient psychiatric unit of Boston Children’s Hospital, where she has been unjustly and illegally imprisoned for the past nine months.’
Prior to Justina’s admission to Bader 5, she had spent two months as a ward of the state after clinicians in a rush to judgment, determined ‘medical child neglect’ against Justina’s parents, Linda and Lou Pelletier…”
Earlier today, supporters of Justina held a rally in front of the Massachusetts statehouse. Justina’s supporters called upon Erin Deveney, acting DCF Commissioner to release Justina to the care of her parents immediately.
In addition, the “Free Justina Coalition” is demanding disclosure of expenditures incurred in the care of Justina or lack thereof by the state of Massachusetts.
Dozens gathered Saturday outside the facility where Justina Pelletier has lived for the last few weeks after being discharged from Boston Children’s Hospital. Keith Mason (center left), president of Personhood USA, spoke at the event with Rev. Patrick Mahoney (center right). (Image source: Keith Mason/Personhood USA)
Outside a youth home in Framingham, Mass., between 50 and 80 people gathered peacefully in below freezing temperatures and prayed for a Connecticut teen at the center of a high-profile custody battle. The vigil held Saturday at Wayside Youth and Family Support Network was for Justina Pelletier, who has been in state care against her parents wishes for more than a year after a disagreement over a medical diagnosis. Dozens gathered Saturday outside the facility where Justina Pelletier has lived for the last few weeks after being discharged from Boston Children’s Hospital. (Image source: Keith Mason/Personhood USA) Dozens gathered Saturday […]
A message needs to be sent to overreaching bureaucrats after Justina is safely back with her family. I suggest we start by prosecuting bureaucrats, doctors, hospital officials/administration. Put them all out to dry.
…Tufts Medical Center, the parents’ first-choice hospital to care for the girl, will be overseeing her medical care.
‘Our primary goal has always been the health and well-being of Justina. We want the parents to be able to work with the providers and courts to ultimately move Justina back to her home state of Connecticut. That is the objective, and is consistent with our previous efforts to find an appropriate placement near her home,’ said agency spokesman Alec Loftus….
A human rights group says it has organized people to make hundreds of calls to court officials asking them to “release Justina Pelletier,” the Connecticut teen at the center of an ongoing, high-profile custody battle.
Keith Mason, president of Personhood USA, said more than 500 calls have been made so far to the office of the Suffolk County Juvenile Court, which is overseeing the Pelletier case. The Massachusetts Department of Children and Families took custody of the 15-year-old last year after doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital disagreed with her parents and another doctor’s diagnosis….
The Pelletiers’ regularly scheduled visitation with Justina was denied today by the Department of Children and Families (DCF).
DCF informed the Pelletiers that contact with their daughter had been cut off because members of the press had independently appeared at the visitation site. Neither the Pelletiers, nor the Free Justina Coalition invited the media, yet the Pelletiers were prevented from seeing their daughter.
The Pelletiers are normally only allowed to visit Justina for one hour per week. In the past, parental visits have been heavily supervised, with several DCF officials and state troopers present.
In response, family spokespersons from the Free Justina Coalition have announced a press conference at DCF offices where the family was supposed to have met with Justina.
The press conference will be held at 30 Dimock Street Roxbury, MA at 4:00pm today.
Is Justina a prison inmate? The decision to keep her parents from seeing her is what they do in prisons when prisoners misbehave.
Justina is not a prison inmate but she being held without her permission and that of her parents. She is a captor of government overreach.
Please visit “Justice for Justina” to sign the petition to help re-unite Justina with her family here.