Thursday, April 23, 2015

Ryan Bomberger Speaks at Celebration of Life



More than 400 people filled the Brighton Nazarene Church on April 16, 2015 to hear Ryan Bomberger of The Radiance Foundation speak about the intrinsic value of each human life. This was the keynote speech during Pregnancy Help Clinic’s 40th Annual Celebration of Life.

Mike Ervin, master of ceremonies and member of the Men’s Team at Pregnancy Help Clinic, referred to Ryan’s life as “miraculous” because Ryan was the product of rape, but his mother chose life instead of abortion. Rape and incest are the two exceptions that even many otherwise prolife people think should be allowed when considering laws restricting abortion.

Ryan was adopted at six weeks by a loving Christian couple who ended up being the parents of three biological children and ten adopted, the latter of many races and ethnic backgrounds. He and his siblings and adoptive parents are still a very tight-knit group and proof that every human life has value. Each of those children is a productive member of society, working to make this world a better place.

Ryan and his wife, Bethany, are doing their part as co-founders of The Radiance Foundation, an organization formed in 2009 that seeks to inform the public about the value and “incredible possibility” of each human life. The foundation strives to “illuminate the irreplaceable worth each of us possess, educate diverse audiences about a myriad of social issues, and motivate people from unawareness to positive action.”

Some of the issues the foundation tackles and promotes are the racist and eugenic past of Planned Parenthood via TooManyAborted.com, compassionate outreach through Sally’s Lambs, which celebrates adoption “while cherishing birth moms,” and “character development and community action” in Shine, a branch of the foundation that aims to help people realize the value of “integrity, honesty, hard work, faith, restraint, and service to others.” During the speech, Ryan stated that more than 70% of African American babies are born to single mothers, continuing a dead-end cycle of poverty and fatherlessness. The Radiance Foundation seeks to combat that hopelessness by teaching that traditional marriage is the foundation of a strong society.


For more information, visit The Radiance Foundation at http://www.theradiancefoundation.org/

Saturday, April 18, 2015

A Friend's Reaction to Josh and Brenda Burns's Nightmare -- and a Warning to Good Parents Everywhere

Please note: This article does not go into detail about the nightmare Josh, Brenda, and Naomi Burns have been living for the past 13 months. For the whole story, please visit their website at www.TornFamily.com 
Josh, Brenda, and Naomi Burns

The last year has been a real eye-opener as I've watched my friends, Josh and Brenda Burns, fight to keep their family together following an allegation of child abuse leveled against the couple by Dr. Bethany Mohr, director of the child protection team at University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Josh was convicted and began serving a one-year sentence in the county jail on March 19, 2015.

I would like to share some of the most valuable lessons I've learned by witnessing this horror story. If you have small children or grandchildren, or if someone you care about does, please share this information. It could make all the difference.

Stay away from hospitals that have child abuse specialists on staff. If you take your child to a hospital that has a child abuse specialist on staff, you are running a major risk unless your child ails from something that could not in any way be considered abuse, such as meningitis or pneumonia. For instance, if your child gets a cut that needs stitches or breaks a bone, you are putting your entire family in jeopardy by visiting one of these hospitals. If someone at the hospital decides that your child may have been abused, the specialist will be called in, and most likely, Child Protective Services (CPS) will be called next. You can kiss your life goodbye if that happens. If you don’t have at least $100,000 to fight back (with no guarantee of success), you are out of luck. In case you were unaware, CPS is a branch of the Department of Human Services (DHS).

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” This quote has been going through my head recently because it makes me think about DHS and CPS. The concept of rescuing children who are truly in danger is an honorable one, to be sure. However, since I have been involved with Torn Family, I have heard more and more stories about CPS stealing children from perfectly sound homes and NOT helping children who are truly in need. One recent case in point is the two kids in Detroit who were found in a freezer. Their mother has been charged with their murders. CPS was called twice to their home, and still, these children were abused and murdered. I also know of a woman who has called CPS on her own sister because the younger woman has substance problems and neglects her children as a result. CPS has never responded to those calls. Look up medical kidnapping to find out more about CPS stealing children from perfectly good parents.

Sometimes, innocent people are found guilty. Child abuse is horrific and one incident is one too many. It is my sincere hope that all who intentionally injure society’s most vulnerable – children – be appropriately punished. I will be the first to admit that, in the past, I never really thought twice if someone was found guilty of Shaken Baby Syndrome or something else. I, like a lot of folks, assumed that the judge and jury were correct. Not anymore. I just witnessed Josh’s criminal trial in which one doctor, Bethany Mohr, claimed child abuse while all the other expert witnesses said that Naomi’s injuries could have been caused by any number of things, including her very traumatic birth. There was reasonable doubt THROUGH THE ROOF, and yet the jury was more swayed by the emotional displays of the prosecutor than they were by the solid defense evidence.

What was once considered a solid diagnosis is now being called “junk science.” Norman Guthkelch, a pediatric neurosurgeon, first coined “shaken baby syndrome” (SBS) in 1971, after he decided that proof for such abuse could be determined if the victim displayed a triad of symptoms: subdural hemorrhage, retinal bleeding, and brain swelling. For the last several years, however, members of the medical community have been revisiting and debunking the science behind this diagnosis. Now sometimes referred to as “abusive head trauma” or AHT, it may seem as though some in the medical community are trying to hang on to this diagnosis simply by changing the name, since there is great controversy surrounding SBS. The new film, The Syndrome, by producer Meryl Goldsmith and her cousin, investigative reporter Susan Goldsmith, focuses on a team of doctors who “expose the junk science behind an unprecedented criminal justice crisis.” As mentioned previously, sometimes innocent people are found guilty. Many – but still too few – have been exonerated of child abuse/murder charges thanks to the hard work of those fighting for justice. There are “innocence projects” all over the country that aim to expose injustices and gain exonerations for those wrongfully convicted. For more information, visit The National Registry of Exonerations at https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/about.aspx

The nightmare that Josh and Brenda Burns have been going through is not an isolated incident. Unfortunately, children being removed from their homes for no good reason isn't rare or unusual. All one has to do is look at the news headlines. The government agencies responsible for breaking up families seem to act with impunity, and they also seem to have certain ideas about which children they’d be better off stealing. Remember the two kids whose mother has been charged with their murder after their bodies were discovered in freezer? CPS apparently didn't care about those poor children. Why not? There’s a money trail here, and further serious investigation is imperative.

The secret list of DHS. Did you know that DHS maintains a secret list of people who've been accused of child abuse? In Michigan alone, there are 275,000 names on this child abuse registry. One of those names is Brenda Burns! Since Josh was charged with child abuse, she was charged with failure to protect for leaving Naomi with him for the hour she was out getting her hair cut. She will be unable to get employment in her given field, nursing, as long as her name is on this list, and it is next to impossible to have it removed. Furthermore, DHS is supposed to notify the person in question within 30 days when they put said person’s name on this secret list. The person then has six months to appeal. Brenda found out that her name had been added to this child abuse registry nine months after the fact and after a jury had found her innocent of any abuse or neglect!

Passionate people really can make a difference. I have no idea what someone with no support system would do if they had to engage in a legal battle the magnitude of Josh and Brenda Burns’s. Right off the bat, their legal team estimated that it would cost at least $100,000 to defend them and no less than six months. Those estimates were actually on the low side. Josh and Brenda fortunately have good friends who, in turn, rallied their good friends. The outpouring of support for this family has been so tremendous that it has garnered not only local media attention, but national as well. Brenda and her lawyer, Elizabeth Warner, will tell their story to four million viewers on the Dr. Phil show on April 29, 2015. Currently, Josh is working on his appeal from jail with lawyers who specialize in these types of cases. It is unlikely, however, that it will be heard before he completes his sentence.


When Josh is finally a free man, he has vowed, as have his supporters, to fight for justice for families caught in similar predicaments. To join the fight or for more information about the Burns family’s ongoing nightmare, please visit www.TornFamily.com.  Please donate to help them, if you are able. Any amount is greatly appreciated. Instructions for donating can be found on the website.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

The Dark Truth About Planned Parenthood: What Livingston Daily Didn't Tell You






You, the public, have a right to know what I am about to tell you. Please read and spread the word.

Just three short weeks after the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus published an editorial entitled “Livingston Daily seeks truth, serves the public,” in which they outlined basic journalism standards that they promise to abide by, they published an article by reporter Abby Welsh entitled “Planned Parenthood brings in new advocacy group.” The problem with the Planned Parenthood article is that it was one-sided, only making positive comments about the abortion giant, and not giving any room for comments from the prolife community. There was never a follow-up article, and my repeated requests to the paper, asking if and when they would publish my letter to the editor, were ignored. The contents of that letter are presented later in this article.

Before anyone thinks I’m complaining for no reason, it should be noted that just last year, when this same paper ran an article about Dr. Anthony Levatino’s keynote address to a packed auditorium during Pregnancy Help Clinic’s annual fundraiser, they made sure to get a quote from Planned Parenthood. The paper’s decision to present only one side of Planned Parenthood in Ms. Welsh’s April 1, 2015 article, and their apparent refusal to print my letter, leaves me with no choice but to publish its contents here.

Planned Parenthood was founded by a racist and eugenicist, Margaret Sanger, whose desire was to eliminate as many blacks, Jews, handicapped, and poor people as possible. She strongly advocated the use of abortion for these eugenic goals as well as population control. According to their own 2013-2014 annual report, Planned Parenthood was responsible for 327,653 abortions in 2013, making this wicked empire the biggest provider of abortions in the United States. They also received $541 million of taxpayers’ hard-earned money, according to their 2012-2013 annual report.
Furthermore, Planned Parenthood knowingly and willingly aids and abets child sex traffickers, as Live Action has proved in their undercover videos. Here is a link to seven undercover videos that prove this: http://liveaction.org/traffick/

Finally, abortion hasn’t helped humankind in any way. We have become accustomed to this culture of death, and we are no better for it. In abortion, the baby dies a usually very violent and painful death, sometimes torn limb from limb, and the mother is left to deal with the fact that she murdered her own child. A lot of women don’t easily “recover” from that, which is one of the reasons there are so many groups around the country now to help them. Our local Pregnancy Help Clinic has Abortion Aftercare groups for just this reason. They also assist with adoption. Call Pregnancy Help Clinic for more information at 810.494.5433 or visit their website at http://www.pregnancyhelpclinic.com/61.html


Here is a link to the one-sided Planned Parenthood article: http://www.livingstondaily.com/story/news/health/2015/04/01/planned-parenthood-organization/70781430/ and a link to the editorial outlining the journalism standards the paper promised to abide by: http://www.livingstondaily.com/story/opinion/editorials/2015/03/08/livingston-ethics-standards/24520687/