Thirty Things That Caught My Eye

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2. Prolific blood donor who saved 2.4 million babies dies at 88:

An Australian man credited with saving more than 2 million babies through decades of regular blood and plasma donations has died at age 88.

James Harrison, whose blood contained a rare antibody, died in his sleep Feb. 17 at a nursing home in the Australian state of New South Wales, according to the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, also known as Lifeblood.

The antibody in Harrison’s blood was used to make the medication anti-D, which is given to pregnant women whose blood might attack their unborn babies. Without it, babies may develop hemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn (HDFN), a blood disorder that can be fatal.

Despite an aversion to needles, Harrison began donating in 1954 at age 18, keeping a promise he made at 14 when he received life-saving blood transfusions as part of a major surgery. A decade later, it was found that his blood contained an antibody essential for producing anti-D injections.

Known as the “man with the golden arm,” Harrison donated his blood and plasma 1,173 times, never missing an appointment for more than 60 years until he retired in 2018 at the age of 81.

“I hope it’s a record that somebody breaks, because it will mean they are dedicated to the cause,” Harrison said at the time.

3. Naomi Schaefer Riley, The lessons of the Gavin Peterson tragedy:

It’s been almost eight months since Gavin Peterson died of organ failure due to severe malnourishment. The police investigation found that the 12-year-old had been abused for years, locked in a room without bedding or blankets, beaten and starved, while adults in the home monitored him with multiple cameras.

Gavin had been on the radar of Utah’s Department of Children and Family Services since 2014, but over and over the agency either failed to investigate allegations of abuse or neglect, or closed investigations prematurely. Public outrage in the wake of Gavin’s death was strong — there were protests and legislative hearings, and legislators took up a bill that would establish a mandatory minimum sentence for people convicted of child torture.

But nothing has been done to address the systemic problems that led to this tragedy. Instead, Utah’s lawmakers seem poised to ... lower the cost of lunch in public schools.

4. Foster care advocates honor Arizona teen whose remains were found dismembered:

MESA, AZ (AZFamily) — Foster care advocates are honoring the memory of 14-year-old Emily Pike whose dismembered remains were found in the woods off Highway 60 in Gila County.

The San Carlos Apache Tribe teen was brutally killed and dismembered. Her torso, head and legs were left in trash bags.

Right now, detectives don’t know what happened or who is responsible.

“I can only imagine the fact that her hands and arms haven’t been found is because she was beating up and hurting her attacker,” said Anika Robinson, a foster care advocate whose nonprofit started serving Emily in 2023.

She was living in a Mesa group home at the time she disappeared.

“I think all of us were shocked that that was her demise. I know that her staff and the girls in her home are suffering greatly because of it,” said Robinson.

Police say Emily’s remains were found on Valentine’s Day about 100 miles away from where she was last seen alive near Mesa Drive and McKellips Road.

Her group home manager reported her missing on Jan. 27 and exactly one month later, on Feb. 27, the Gila County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the remains dumped on the side of the road were her’s.

“Somebody had to have seen something, right? Someone had to have seen her face, had to have seen her yelling, had to have observed something or taken part in this or they know someone who did. I would ask them to please reach out to police,” said Robinson.

Mesa Police said Emily had a history of running away, and what happened in the weeks after she vanished remain a mystery as police continue to investigate her death.

5. Freed hostage Emily Damari undergoes surgery on hand shot on October 7:

Released hostage Emily Damari underwent a series of operations on Thursday to correct complications from wounds she sustained on October 7, 2023, when she was shot and taken hostage to Gaza by Hamas terrorists.

Damari, 29, was released from captivity on January 19 and immediately drew attention to her hand, now missing two fingers, which she raised in a symbol of victory.

Mandy Damari, Emily’s mother, said her daughter was “sewn up like a pin cushion” by Hamas, leaving Emily in significant pain in both her hand and leg.

Despite the nature of her wounds and the risk of infection, Damari’s Hamas captors did not provide any ongoing medical care other than an expired bottle of iodine.

“It is nothing short of a miracle that she did not contract a life-threatening infection,” said Mandy Damari, who spent months petitioning world leaders and human rights groups to prioritize humanitarian aid and medical assistance for the hostages.

Emily Damari said in a statement following the surgery at Sheba Medical Center that her hand will never fully recover, yet she wasn’t experiencing the same kind of intense pain she had for a year and a half in captivity.

The former hostage said the nerves of her hand were sewn together in surgery at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, leaving an open, festering wound that did not heal for four months because of the conditions of the tunnels, where she was kept for long periods. The wound eventually became a large scar left between her three remaining fingers.

Damari said she hopes to use her hand more effectively after this latest operation, with the help of physiotherapy.

“I have fully embraced my hand, my pain, and my scars,” said Damari before her surgery. “To me, they represent freedom, hope and strength.”

https://twitter.com/AvivaKlompas/status/1896294527591154170

https://twitter.com/AvivaKlompas/status/1896296020612379069

6. Jenni Russell, Doctors want to save lives not help people die:

My new objections encompass all this and more. Even if the bill contained perfect safeguards it should still be opposed, because the option of assisted death creates the potential to reframe all the relationships a dying person has, both medical and personal, in a colder, more calculating light. This measure is not merely a matter of offering choice to a few desperate individuals. Nobody will be able to escape the harsher question of whether a terminally sick person should continue to exist, once the bill becomes law. This change will undermine what we take for granted: our faith in doctors and nurses. We believe they want to extend and guard our lives. When we are ill we’re fragile, separated from our competent selves. We need the security of relinquishing responsibility. We might worry about the judgment or efficiency of medical staff but not their motivations. That trust is a key part of our healing.

7. Timothy P. Carney, Forget ‘return to office,’ Mr. President. That’s no way to fix a baby bust.:

JD Vance’s biggest applause line at this year’s March for Life wasn’t specifically about abortion. “I want more babies in the United States of America,” the vice president declared. Vance is right to care about the U.S. birth rate, which has fallen to record lows, with American women having on average 1.6 babies each, while people consider 2.7 ideal, according to the latest Gallup poll.

Here’s one way to jump-start a fix: The federal government should let its employees work from home as much as possible.

The natural tension between work and family makes employers the most important players in any pro-family, pro-natal effort. And with nearly 2 million Americans calling Uncle Sam their boss, the U.S. government is the largest employer in the country. So if it became a relentlessly pro-family employer, we would almost certainly see more family formation.

8. John Hirschauer, “Inclusion” Means Exclusion for Disabled Students in Massachusetts:

In January, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health announced plans to close the Pappas Rehabilitation Hospital for Children, a hospital-school in Canton for students with severe physical disabilities. The decision was celebrated by the state’s public health commissioner, Robbie Goldstein, who believes that many of the school’s children “actually could be better cared for, more safely cared for, more compassionately cared for at home.” But the announcement devastated students, families, and staff, who say that the 160-acre facility is the best place for children with complex medical and developmental challenges. Though public opposition has prompted Governor Maura Healey to “pause” the closure until further notice, Pappas and its students remain in jeopardy.

Founded as the Massachusetts Hospital School in 1907 and renamed in 2017, Pappas is home to some of the state’s most severely disabled students. The school’s sprawling campus hosts nurses, doctors, and specialists, providing a self-contained therapeutic environment and full suite of services. While the facility has capacity for 60 students, federal and state policies that discourage special residential placements for disabled students have reduced its census to 36. Many of these children have nowhere else to go.

9. Robert P. George, Rubio Can Unhijack ‘Human Rights’:

Human rights have long been a driving moral force in America’s foreign policy. Ronald Reagan made the case against Soviet expansionism and oppression in the language of human rights. The rights to life, religious freedom, freedom of expression, and due process of law are all rooted, as Martin Luther King Jr. observed, in natural law and enshrined in our nation’s founding documents. An understanding of rights as deriving from the inherent and equal dignity of every person echoes the American Founders’ prophetic proclamation “that all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator” with “unalienable rights.”

During the Obama and Biden administrations, the State Department reconceived human rights to advance left-wing causes, from castigating countries like Poland for laws that uphold the sanctity of human life in all stages and conditions to funneling foreign aid on behalf of gay rights and transgender ideology.

This reconception of human rights spurred Secretary Mike Pompeo to establish the Commission on Unalienable Rights in 2019, under the chairmanship of Harvard legal scholar Mary Ann Glendon. In its report, the commission outlined the historical Western conception of rights and recommended that the U.S. be “cautious” about “expanding” it.

10. Bishops express concern Congo’s war could unravel into a regional conflict:

11. More gains for school choice across the country:

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16. Jeffrey Bruno, The Woman who Prayed on the Plaza:

As I walked from City Hall to the subway, I passed St. Andrew’s Church, known as "The Printers’ Church," just across the plaza.

One of the many security personnel in the area caught my attention. She walked with a determined stride toward the church. As she reached the police barricade in front of the now-shuttered building, she reached into her pocket and withdrew what looked like a handkerchief.

It wasn’t.

What it was, was unthinkable…

It was a veil.

With quiet reverence, she placed the veil upon her head, bowed, and from another pocket, retrieved a set of Rosary beads.

And she began to pray.

A beautiful and powerful public witness of faith.

People in tailored suits, police officers, and street wanderers alike turned to look as they passed by, momentarily caught in a reality that seemed out of place yet perfectly at home.

I stood in stunned silence, absorbing what I was seeing.

It hit me all at once—there are countries where praying in public could get you arrested. And not long ago, the United States seemed to be veering toward that same dangerous path.

17. Jeff’s veiled security guard reminded me of this Maddy Kearns piece in the Free Press from some months ago — The Young Catholic Women Bringing Back Veils:

Over time, Amanda’s appreciation for veiling deepened. “I reached a point where I feel it’s a kind of mystical thing,” she said. For her, stepping into church and “putting on my veil just reminds me of the fact I’m in a different place. I don’t do this anywhere else.”

The same is true for Patel, who converted to Catholicism in 2016 when she was at college in California. She moved to New York in 2019. There, she saw other young, traditionally minded women veiling, which she thought was “pretty.” But after she got her own veil, she “fell in love” with it as a way to show that “Jesus is really present in the Blessed Sacrament”—that is, the bread and wine Catholics believe is transformed into Christ’s body and blood at Mass.

Now, she never leaves her apartment without her mantilla: “I always carry my veil, my phone, my keys, my wallet.”

18. Speaking of Maddy, Meet the Grandma Arrested by Scotland’s Speech Police:

She said that over the past 10 years, she has been approached by various men and women who have been affected by abortion “to speak about their experience and the grief they have suffered.”

Docherty said she remembers a few years ago in Glasgow, one woman thanking vigil attendees because “she had been helped by pro-lifers in the past when she found herself with an unplanned pregnancy as a young woman.”

“Her parents said that they wanted her to abort the baby and if she didn’t, they were going to put her out of the house. She would have nowhere to live. She came to the pro-life organization, and she was supported with accommodation and supported through the pregnancy.”

19. Scottish Police Were Right to Arrest Pro-Lifer Outside Abortion Facility, Lawmaker Says:

Gillian Mackay, a Green Party member credited with authoring the “Safe Access Zones” bill that took effect in September 2024, told an interviewer that she hopes the arrest sends a message about what activities aren’t acceptable near abortion sites. . . .

The law Mackay wrote bans “influencing the decision of another person to access, provide, or facilitate the provision of abortion services at the protected premises” within 200 meters (about 656 feet) of such a facility.

A pro-life supporter of Docherty said the arrest was wrong.

“It’s clear that Rose was not breaking the law. She was not ‘influencing’ anyone, but rather standing peacefully, inviting conversation, should anyone wish to engage. Alongside many other Scots, I was appalled to see her handcuffed and arrested and was disappointed that MSPs did not speak out against this clear injustice,” Lois McLatchie Miller, senior legal communications officer of Alliance Defending Freedom International, which defends pro-lifers, told the Register by email.

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21. Visa program used by thousands of nuns set to end:

22. After 5 years in jail, ex-gang member Peake wins New Zealand Open and qualifies for British Open:

After leaving jail he returned to golf and began to rebuild his career with the help of leading coach Richie Smith and with the support of his family. . . . “I always knew I could do it but it was just a matter of when I was going to do it,” Peake said. “Along with my family and my team everyone believed and most of all I believed as well.”

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https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1896759803822985568

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25. American-Israeli diplomat Dore Gold passes away aged 71:

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27. Grazie Pozo Christie, Not feeling well about America's well-being:

There is a deep connection between our physical state and the state of our souls and minds. No matter how strong our bodies, a dysfunctional home, a soul-crushing job, or a deep depression have the ability to steal physical contentment from us.

And it works the other way. For instance, studies have shown that married people live longer, and have lower rates of chronic illness like heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension. Similar benefits come from regular church attendance. It is thought that companionship and connectedness, and the sense of purpose and meaning that marriage and faith bring, somehow improve our immune function and lower our cortisol levels. I can just see the note on the prescription pad: “A strong marriage once per day and Mass once per week.”

There is a dark side to the holistic health perspective, however. It sets up impossible expectations of complete contentment, breeding unhappiness with the inevitable difficulties of life. There is no such thing, anymore, as “normal for age.” Whether wrinkles, age-related infertility, or some thickening around the waist, there is a demand for medical fixes to normal human experiences. This has effectively turned patients into consumers, and doctors into vending machines.

28. Comedy legend John Cleese to perform three shows in Israel this June:

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