"I want you all to understand the value of your children,” Cosby said. “Your children happen to be helpless. They need you."
He says too many parents expect too much of the schools and that pouring more money into them won't solve all of the community's problems.
"To try to get the adults to seriously throw off the apathy and recognize that the revolution is in the home,” the actor, producer and activist continued.
After a public uproar, Texas Governor Rick Perry rejected a bill that would have given Children's Protective Services unusual power.- click here for the original article.
After the Lone Star State's legislature passed the legislation as an amendment to another bill, the alarm was sounded and the public rose to the occasion. Jonathan Saenz of the Free Market Foundation led the campaign.
"I like to call it a seize-and-ask-questions-later CPS bill, which would have expanded Child Protective Services' rights to violate the constitutional rights of parents and children, and allow CPS to come to your home and take your kids and examine them and question them regarding an anonymous tip," he explains.
Saenz adds that under the bill, that could happen without a court hearing, without notice to the parents, without consent, and even without good cause -- in spite of a federal court decision that requires constitutional protections to stay in place.
"So, it's just ludicrous that now the legislature would try to do an end-run around what the federal court decided," Saenz concludes.
Governor Perry's office was flooded with phone calls and emails before the announcement was made that he would veto the measure.
The mother of the octuplets born this week already has six other young children and refused the option of a selective abortion when told she was expecting multiple babies, it has emerged.- Click here for full article
Instead the woman, who has not been publicly named, chose to go ahead and give birth, giving her a total haul of 14 children.
Today, as all the babies continued to make good progress in a Los Angeles hospital, it emerged that the mother’s existing six children were under the age of eight, including one set of twins.
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The subsequent birth, while being only the second time in history that octuplets have been born and all survived, caused worldwide attention – but also some discomfort among critics who have questioned the medical ethics of implanting multiple embryos, which makes multiple births more likely.
"What do you suggest she should have done?" Ms Suleman told the newspaper. "She refused to have them killed. That is a very painful thing."
The mother, who described the newborn babies as "so tiny and beautiful", admitted that being able to bring up 14 children – the others are aged seven, six, five, three and two – would be difficult. She added that her daughter's father was going back to Iraq, where he is believed to work as a contractor, to help support the extended family.
Although the octuplets' mother has not been identified in order to protect the identities of her young children, journalists have tracked the family down to what was said to be a cul-de-sac in Whittier.
The woman, who is believed to be 33 years of age, gave birth to the octuplets last Monday at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Centre in Bellflower, where the youngsters remain. They were delivered by a team of 46 doctors, nurses and assistants, with the entire procedure lasting just five minutes. Doctors said the eighth child was a complete surprise, as they had only expected seven.
Hours after media vans and reporters gathered outside the Whittier home, the hospital issued a fresh statement on behalf of the mother requesting privacy.
"Please know, in our own time, we will share additional details about this miraculous experience," the statement read.
"The babies continue to grow strong every day and make good progress. My family and I are ecstatic about all of their arrivals. Needless to say the eighth was a surprise to us all, but a blessing as well."
Dr Mandhir Gupta, one of the delivery team, said that seven of the babies were breathing without assistance. One was still receiving oxygen through a tube in his nose. Seven of the infants were being tube-fed donated breast milk. One of the boys was expected to begin feeding today. All babies continued to receive an intravenous nutritional combination. They were expected to remain in the hospital for several more weeks.
The medical community, meanwhile, remain divided about the ethics of implanting so many embryos when the chances of an unusually large number of multiple births were so high. According to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, doctors would usually refuse to implant any more than two embryos at any given time for a woman under the age of 35.
Dr Harold Henry, who was part of the delivery team, told the LA Times that he had given Ms Suleman the option of aborting some of the foetuses.
"What I do is just explain the facts. I always talk about the risks," he said. "The mother weighs those options, and she chooses the option based on spiritual or personal makeup."
However, most practitioners - while confirming that guidance tells them not to implant multiple embryos - acknowledge the choice is not ultimately theirs to make and rests solely with the mother. "Who am I to say that six is the limit?" Dr Jeffrey Steinberg, medical director of Fertility Institutes, which has clinics in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York City, told the Associated Press news agency. "There are people who like to have big families."
Dr James Grifo, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the New York University School of Medicine, added: "I don’t think it's our job to tell them how many babies they’re allowed to have. I am not a policeman for reproduction in the United States. My role is to educate patients."
BELLFLOWER, Calif. (AP) - The octuplets born to a mother in Southern California are doing "very, very well" and breathing on their own, one of their doctors said Tuesday.- Click here for the rest of the article
Dr. Mandhir Gupta, a neonatologist at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center, told ABC's "Good Morning America" the eight babies were in stable condition.
Two of the newborns—the second live octuplets born in U.S. history—were initially put on ventilators, but their breathing tubes have been removed.
"Only three babies need some sort of oxygen through the nose right now but they are breathing on their own," Gupta said. "The babies are doing actually very, very well."
The mother, who was not identified, gave birth Monday to the six boys and two girls weighing between 1 pound, 8 ounces, and 3 pounds, 4 ounces. The eighth baby was a surprise to the parents and doctors who had been expecting only seven children.
"It is quite easy to miss a baby when you're anticipating seven," said Dr. Harold Henry, chief of maternal and fetal medicine and one of 46 doctors, nurses and assistants who delivered the children by Caesarean section.
Just five minutes after the first birth, the unexpected eighth baby came out at 10:48 a.m. "My eyes were wide," said Dr. Karen Maples, chief of the department of obstetrics and gynecology.
Maples said the mother was "very comfortable now. She is currently stable and we're observing her. She's also very excited about the health of her babies and she's extremely happy."
