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The camera just loves little Taya Kennedy. Wide-eyed, cheeky, engaged; she brims with the confidence of a natural performer. It is little wonder that she has taken the child-modelling world by storm. The fact that 14-month-old Taya also has Down’s Syndrome is quite incidental. She was selected, not to fulfil a quota, tick a box or adhere to the dictums of some politically-correct code of positive discrimination. Taya was picked because, quite simply, she is a star. ‘Taya is an incredibly photogenic, warm and smiley child, and that shines through in her photographs,’ says Alysia Lewis, owner of Urban Angels,...

An article was released by the New York Post last week revealing the discovery of “a new, simple way to detect Down syndrome in a fetus.” The test surpasses currently used methods of testing in safety and convenience, making it more likely that pregnant women will commonly be able to know before birth whether the child will have Down syndrome.The article goes on to report that “92% of women who get a definitive diagnosis of Down choose to abort, surveys show.”In effect, the new test will enable more pregnant women to find whether her child will have Down syndrome and...

Prenatal testing for Down syndrome should not be considered preventive medicine. Such tests cannot prevent the presence of Down syndrome in a child; but they can decrease the likelihood of a child with Down syndrome surviving beyond the womb. Expectant parents need accurate information, including the many positive outcomes, about life raising a child with Down syndrome. Last month, my daughter Juliet began second grade, where her mother and I expect her to maintain her B+ average on spelling tests and straight A’s in Chinese. In addition to being a loving daughter and big sister, Juliet also is endowed...

Note: Jewels Green is a former abortion clinic worker who also had an abortion herself. She recently spoke out about her experiences as an abortion clinic worker for the first time. September 20, 2011 (LiveAction.org) - After supporting abortion my entire life and working in an abortion clinic for years, my Ah-HA moment seemed to come from an unlikely place. I did not have a profound, sudden shift in my worldview. After years of ignoring the little voice inside me questioning the death around me—the nightmares and the regret—the truth snuck up on me. I was involved in an online...

Prosecutors are using a new state law lengthening the gap between parole hearings to keep convicted child killer Diane Downs from coming before the board again for a decade. Downs, whose conviction for shooting her three children and killing one outside Springfield in 1984 inspired the Ann Rule book "Small Sacrifices," is scheduled for a parole hearing Friday. The 55-year-old has been locked up more than 25 years for the shootings. State law had required release hearings every two years for more than 1,500 prison inmates eligible for parole consideration, but a new law that took effect last January lengthened...

Israel's new rocket defense system has proven a hit-to-kill capability. Officials said Israel's Iron Dome has achieved the ability to strike incoming short-range missiles and rockets. They said the Iron Dome demonstrated this during its first live fire test in mid-2009. "They met head on," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said. In a Nov. 17 address to the International Aerospace Conference and Exhibition-Israel, Barak said Iron Dome exceeded all expectations. He said the assessment within the Defense Ministry and military had been that the interceptor would explode 10 meters from the incoming missile.

A mother is appealing for women to have sex with her adopted Down syndrome son. Lucy Baxter, of Abingdon, Oxfordshire in southern England, says she will even pay for a prostitute so he can lose his virginity. The mother has now set up a Web page for her son, Otto, appealing for potential dates to come forward. Baxter has three other adopted sons with Down syndrome and works with Mencap, the U.K.'s leading charity for people with disabilities. "I'd like all my boys to find love and enjoy sex," she said. "I always look at what other people are doing...

As a 15 per cent increase in Down's syndrome births is revealed, the Adkins family tell Bryony Gordon how keeping Ben was the best thing they ever did.

A special gathering of Down's syndrome children and their families for the March for Life in Washington DC in January. This year, in particular, with all sorts of anti-life legislation poised to be let loose on us, as many people as possible should consider going to March. A million people cannot be ignored, can they? What sort of shenanigans can be expected for the inaugeral? Publicity will be theirs for sure. What about for those who wish to defend the most innocent and defenseless of Americans? ------ http://cause-of-our-joy.blogspot.com/2008/11/invitation-to-join-us-for-march-for.html An Invitation to join us for the March for Life 2009 Last...

A roomful of academics erupted in angry boos Tuesday morning after political analyst Michael Barone said journalists trashed Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republicans' vice presidential nominee, because "she did not abort her Down syndrome baby." Barone said in an e-mail that he "was attempting to be humorous and ... went over the line." Barone was speaking at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago, to the 121st annual meeting of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, which calls itself the nation’s oldest higher-education association. “The liberal media attacked Sarah Palin because she did not abort her...

Thumbnails:         Vanity: Sarah Palin believes special needs children are a "gift from God." The little fella in these three photos sat on the shoulders or lap of one of his older brothers during most of the Sarah Palin rally at Hurkamp Park in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on 27 October. It is such a joy to see a family filled with love and care. These three thumbnails are from the Free-Lance Star of Fredericksburg VA. The larger photos are protected from direct linking, so here is a link to the html page of one of the three. http://freelancestar.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=20999077&event=623455&CategoryID=43426&picnum=4&move=B#Image

Krista Flint, executive director of the Canadian Down Syndrome Society, said, "Many of the country's medical professionals only give messages of fear to parents who learn their baby will be born with the genetic condition." "It's very dark," she said in the Globe and Mail report. "They hear a lot about the medical conditions that are sometimes associated with Down syndrome. They hear about the burden . . . it places on children and a marriage." "They hear about things like shortened life expectancy. They hear a lot about the challenges of a life with Down syndrome. That's why Mrs....

US Election 2008: Barack Obama vs. Trig Palin? 2008-09-08 at 3:42 pm · People who have been following the upcoming American election will know that last week featured a sustained media hit on Republican Veep nominee Sarah Palin’s family. Some of the visceral hatred of Sarah Palin is, of course, completely understandable. As commentator Bill Whittle perceptively noted, Sarah Palin has done more than unify and electrify the base. She’s done something I would not have thought possible, were it not happening in front of my nose: Sarah Palin has stolen Barack Obama’s glamour. She’s stolen his excitement, robbed his...

"When we first heard, it was kind of confusing," Palin, 44, said. She called the revelation "very, very challenging" and said she initially felt sad. But the family has worked through that. Palin said she and Todd feel blessed and chosen by God. With a big family including four older kids, grandparents, aunts and uncles, Palin said, they will have lots of support for what's ahead. In their eyes, she said, "he's absolutely perfect." --- In a letter she e-mailed to relatives and close friends Friday after giving birth, Palin wrote, "Many people will express sympathy, but you don't want...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6, 2008 – Al Qaeda is recruiting and training boys -- some younger than 11 -- to kidnap and kill, a senior U.S. military spokesman in Iraq said today. Five training tapes recovered in a December raid show as many as 20 boys, most thought to be younger than 11 years old, carrying automatic weapons and grenades, storming homes in mock kidnappings and assassinations, and sitting in a circle chanting their allegiance to al Qaeda. Portions of the tapes were aired for journalists at a news conference in Iraq today. “Al Qaeda in Iraq wants to poison the...

Recently, while wandering through my local grocery, I turned the corner, heading up the cereal aisle. I had no more walked ten feet when I caught the attention of a stranger – a young man in his mid-twenties – walking toward me. Upon seeing me, his face lit up and a smile spread from ear to ear. I smiled in return, his pace quickened and he marched straight over to me and with a welcoming voice said, "Hello, how are you?" I stopped, we exchanged a few friendly words and then after a hardy “goodbye,” he moved on to greet...

EACH YEAR IN AMERICA fewer and fewer disabled infants are born. The reason is eugenic abortion. Doctors and their patients use prenatal technology to screen unborn children for disabilities, then they use that information to abort a high percentage of them. Without much scrutiny or debate, a eugenics designed to weed out the disabled has become commonplace. Not wishing to publicize a practice most doctors prefer to keep secret, the medical community releases only sketchy information on the frequency of eugenic abortion against the disabled. But to the extent that the numbers are known, they indicate that the vast majority...

(CNSNews.com) - A new study is fueling the debate surrounding the abortion of babies thought to have Down syndrome and other birth defects. The study published in the March issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology shows that many pregnant women receive only negative information from medical professionals when a prenatal diagnosis reveals a potential for giving birth to a baby with Down syndrome. The study is being billed by the Harvard University Gazette as "the largest and most comprehensive study on prenatally diagnosed Down syndrome to date." Among the examples noted in the report was an expectant...