Stop commenting people without understanding behind the keyboards!
A mother of four from Florida who suffers a rare heritable Crouzon Syndrome which makes her have abnormal faces was bullied online after revealing one of her family photos.
Click to Gallery
Stop commenting people without understanding behind the keyboards!
Bobbie-Jo Theriault, 43, got a rare genetic deformity and had inherited to her four children, who three of them are triplets, to have the illness. The syndrome causes their head to become misshapen and their eyes protrude more than the generals do.
Bobbie-Jo described the post was "cruel, hurtful and disgusting" to her since the people who used the photo didn't know the story of her family and kids. She knew the post when her husband Fredrick, 47, said his friend contacted him to tell they had seen it.
When talking about the post, she said, "What gives them the right to go out and do hurtful things like this? I don't know what's happened to the page or the meme. A lot of my friends reported it too."
Photo via Facebook
Bobbie-Jo Theriault, 43, got a rare genetic deformity and had inherited to her four children, who three of them are triplets, to have the illness. The syndrome causes their head to become misshapen and their eyes protrude more than the generals do.
The mother posted a family photo and was used by a Facebook page with the vicious caption, "When you don't learn from your mistakes."
Photo via Facebook
Bobbie-Jo described the post was "cruel, hurtful and disgusting" to her since the people who used the photo didn't know the story of her family and kids. She knew the post when her husband Fredrick, 47, said his friend contacted him to tell they had seen it.
She also condemned trolls who she described "hiding behind their keyboards" and worried that her kids were old enough to use social media.
"I do worry as my kids get older and they start using social media more. I would ask these people what is wrong with them. Seriously. These are just children they are mocking," said Bobbie-Jo.
Photo via Facebook
When talking about the post, she said, "What gives them the right to go out and do hurtful things like this? I don't know what's happened to the page or the meme. A lot of my friends reported it too."
The mother said that she had no idea her babies would be in danger of having a life-threatening form of Crouzon. She also shared the experience she was teased by schoolmates because of her protruding eyes, but she believed it made her a stronger person and better to help her kids.
Photo via Facebook
Photo via Facebook
"Children are going to be children. Bullying is everywhere no matter who are. All three of the triplets will probably come across somebody who is going to bother them. But if they do get called names they will have me to help them," she added.
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday blamed Donald Trump for Florida's upcoming abortion ban and other restrictions across the country that have imperiled access to care for pregnant women, arguing Trump has created a “healthcare crisis for women all over this country.”
Biden's campaign events at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa placed the president in the epicenter of the latest battle over abortion restrictions. The state’s six-week abortion ban is poised to go into effect May 1 at the same time that Florida voters are gearing up for a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution. Biden said that millions of women are facing “pain and cruelty."
“But it’s not inevitable. We can stop it. When you vote, we can stop it," he said.
The president is seeking to capitalize on the unceasing momentum against abortion restrictions nationwide to not only buoy his reelection bid in battleground states he won in 2020, but also to go on the offensive against Trump in states that the presumptive Republican nominee won four years ago. One of those states is Florida, where Biden lost to Trump by 3.3 percentage points.
On Tuesday, he chronicled increasing medical concerns for women in the two years since the Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections.
“There was one person who was responsible for this nightmare," Biden said. “And he’s acknowledged it and he brags about it — Donald Trump.”
Biden said Trump, who has publicly waffled on his abortion views, and of late has said abortion is a matter for states to decide, is concerned voters will now hold him accountable.
“Folks, the bad news for Trump is that we are going to hold him accountable,” Biden said.
At the same time, advocates on the ground say support for abortion access cuts across parties. They're intent on making the issue as nonpartisan as possible as they work to scrounge up at least 60% support from voters for the ballot initiative.
That could mean in some cases, Florida voters would split their tickets, backing GOP candidates while supporting the abortion measure.
“I think that normal people are aware that a candidate campaign is really different than a ballot initiative,” said Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for Floridians Protecting Freedom, which gathered signatures to put the abortion question before voters. “You can vote for your preferred candidate of any political party and still not agree with them on every single issue."
Brenzel continued, “This gives voters an opportunity to have their message heard on one policy platform.”
On the same day the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the ballot measure could go before voters, it also upheld the state’s 15-week abortion ban. That subsequently cleared the way for the new ban on the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, which is often before women know they are pregnant, to go into effect next week.
Organizers of the abortion ballot measure say they collected nearly 1.5 million signatures to put the issue before voters, although the state stopped counting at just under a million. Roughly 891,500 signatures were required. Of the total number of signatures, about 35% were from either registered Republican voters or those not affiliated with a party, organizers said.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat, said if the abortion ballot initiative becomes branded as a partisan effort, “it just makes it more challenging to reach 60%.” Eskamani, who worked at Planned Parenthood before running for political office, said she is encouraging the Biden administration to focus broadly on the impact of a six-week ban and let the ballot measure speak for itself.
“At the end of the day, the ballot initiative is going to be a multimillion-dollar campaign that stands very strongly on its own,” Eskamani said.
Trump's campaign did not respond to a question on whether the former president, a Florida voter, would oppose or support the ballot measure. In an NBC interview last September, Trump called Florida’s six-week ban “terrible.” But he has repeatedly highlighted the three conservative-leaning justices he chose for the high court who cleared the way to overturn Roe.
Republicans were dismissive of the Biden campaign and the broader Democratic Party’s efforts to use abortion as a political cudgel, arguing that other issues will matter more with voters in November.
“Biden must have forgotten that thousands of Americans have fled from extremist Democrat policies to prosperous and pro-life states like Florida," said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley.
Still, Trump and other Republicans are aware that voter backlash against increasing restrictions could be a serious liability this fall.
Abortion-rights supporters have won every time the issue has been put before voters, including in solidly conservative states such as Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio. Last month, a Democrat in a suburban state House district in Alabama flipped the seat from Republican control by campaigning on abortion rights, weeks after in vitro fertilization services had been paused in the state.
Nikki Fried, the chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, said Florida will be a competitive state on the presidential level “because of the extremism that has come out of Florida.” No Democrat has won the state on the presidential level since 2012, but state party officials have found some glimmers of political change in vastly smaller races, such as the open Jacksonville mayor’s race last May that saw a Democrat win in what was once a solidly Republican city.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said at a news conference before the visit that the abortion amendment was written in a way to deliberately mislead voters, an argument that the state Supreme Court disagreed with when it approved the ballot language.
“All I can tell you is Floridians are not buying what Joe Biden is selling and in November we’re going to play an instrumental role in sending him back to Delaware where he belongs," he said.
Associated Press writers Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee and Colleen Long in Washington contributed to this report.
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom during an organizing event Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom during an organizing event Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom during an organizing event Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Supporters cheer as President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom during an organizing event Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
People listen as President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Supporters wear shirts with the message "Men 4 Choice" while waiting in line to see President Joe Biden speak during a reproductive freedom campaign event at Hillsborough Community College, Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
President Joe Biden arrives at Tampa International Airport, in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden greets Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., as he arrives at Tampa International Airport, in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried makes a selfie photo with attendees waiting to hear President Joe Biden speak during a reproductive freedom campaign event at Hillsborough Community College, Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
FILE - President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting in the White House, Jan. 22, 2024, in Washington. Biden is traveling to Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday, April 23, just days before the state's six-week abortion ban goes into effect, to make his case against abortion restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Supporters wear shirts with the message "Flip Florida Blue" while waiting in line to see President Joe Biden speak during a reproductive freedom campaign event at Hillsborough Community College, Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
President Joe Biden greets Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., as he arrives at Tampa International Airport, in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden greets Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., as he arrives at Tampa International Airport, in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
