Author: Vicken Chmshkian

LOS ANGELES— In honor of National Infertility Week Awareness, Alera Enterprises Inc. announced that CBS U.K. has acquired “Egg Factor,” a gripping, 10-part docu-series tracing the extraordinary lives of men and women involved in creating modern families with donated eggs.

“Egg Factor,” which is set to debut in early 2020, was premiered at Raleigh Studios, in Los Angeles, on May 8. The event was organized by Executive Producers, Lara Sarkissian and Alen Tarassians and their female-powered team along with industry experts.

In addition, featured couple Kacy Andrews and Jack Messitt—parents of Fuller House Stars Fox and Dashiell Messitt—joined the panel to discuss their unconventional and highly-controversial journey to parenthood. The screening was followed by a Q&A and wine reception.

In “Egg Factor,” single mothers, couples, lesbians, and gay men who struggle to conceive naturally are finally able to realize their dream of having a baby with healthy eggs from young women who are willing to go through the grueling egg retrieval process. The journeys are both eye-opening and entertaining with twists, setbacks and surprises, but ultimately ending with a same wondrous result: A new life!

“Now, more than ever, women need one another; this is the very notion that motivated us to put our life savings on the line to create an opportunity for women to empower each other in the most extraordinary way. The true experiences featured in “Egg Factor” not only aim to lift the secrecy and shame surrounding infertility, but to help restore the spirits of discouraged, yet determined couples as they surrender to the DNA or a womb of another’s,” said Lara Sarkissian.

“Of course,” Sarkissian adds, “I couldn’t have done this alone. Like the women I followed, I’m indebted to the endless support from Gifted Journeys, PFCLA, my partner Alen Tarassians and our amazing team at Alera who were instrumental in the development and production of ‘Egg Factor.’”

For millions of intended parents, creating a healthy baby comes with a difficult choice they never imagined: accepting the end of their own genetic lineage and relying on a stranger’s eggs. Egg donation is on the rise with 74% more registered donors in the last ten years. 10,000 babies are born each year using donor eggs, a number that has doubled in just a few years.

In “Egg Factor,” the donations are arranged by Gifted Journeys, a leading egg donation and surrogacy agency. While Doctor Vic Sahakian, of the Pacific Fertility Center of Los Angeles, is the guide on the medical side. He is pioneering, straight talking and makes new life happen.

“Egg Factor” is being distributed worldwide by Rive Gauche television.

About Alera:

Alera Enterprises, is a boutique production company founded in 2001 by Lara Sarkissian and Alen Tarassians with a mission to create new media content that is always ahead of the curve. With hundreds of hours of television programs under their belt, the team at Alera is passionate about all that they produce. From script to screen, commercials to documentaries and apps for mobile devices, ingenuity rules! Be it with Overhualin’ (Transforming dream cars with Chip Foose), Living with Ed (Tackling green living with celeb-environmentalist Ed Begley Jr. ) or with their latest series “Egg Factor” (Redefining the modern family formation), Alera creates groundbreaking programming that simply connects to your soul.

Founders Lara and Alen, a husband and wife team, created “Egg Factor” with the same passion and purpose they put behind their production company. Having conquered infertility in order to start a family of their own, they know first-hand how difficult a feat it can seem to be. In the end, however, it’s always worth the battle. Lara and Alen continue with their mission to help discouraged, yet determined parents turn their dream into reality.

About Gifted Journeys:

All donations in “Egg Factor” were arranged by Gifted Journeys, a leading egg donation and surrogacy agency headed by Wendie Wilson-Miller and Tina Barbagallo, both of whom donated eggs of their own multiple times. Wendie Wilson-Miller, Founder and CEO of Gifted Journeys is an award-winning author internationally recognized for her works on LGBT in Insider’s Guide to Egg Donation: A Compassionate and Comprehensive Guide For All Parents-to-Be. Further, Wednie co-founded Society for Ethics in Egg Donation and Surrogacy, where she currently holds the title of Vice President.

About PFCLA:

The medical treatments on “Egg Factor” are led by Dr. Sahakian of Pacific Fertility Center of Los Angeles. Dr. Sahakian has performed over 10,000 IVF procedures and is responsible for the birth of over 7,000 babies all over the world. Hundreds of same sex partners have also been helped by Dr. Sahakian in achieving their dream of building a family through egg donation and surrogacy. He, specializes in treating patients with advanced maternal age and is responsible for the oldest woman on record to have given birth at the age of 67.

Annual Commemorative Statement again Fails to Properly Characterize Armenian Genocide

WASHINGTON—For the third year, President Donald Trump failed to properly condemn as ‘genocide’ the Ottoman Turkish government’s annihilation of millions of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and other Christians in his annual April 24th commemorative statement.

“This is a cut-and-paste policy, set in Ankara by Turkish dictators and enforced in Washington by American presidents,” said Armenian National Committee of America ANCA Executive Director Aram Suren Hamparian, whose complete response is provided below.

“President Trump has once again granted Turkish President Erdogan – an authoritarian and increasingly anti-American dictator – a veto over honest U.S. remembrance of Turkey’s WWI-era genocide of millions of Armenians and other Christians.

“This is a cut-and-paste policy, set in Ankara by Turkish dictators and enforced in Washington by American presidents.”

*Having promised an America First presidency, he has pursued a Turkey First policy on the Armenian Genocide.

*Having pledged to protest the persecution of Christians, he has enforced a foreign gag-rule against honest remembrance of a century-old crime.

*Having vowed to restore U.S. leadership, he has, instead, outsourced American moral standing to a foreign dictatorship.

We look now to the U.S. Congress to provide the leadership that the White House has failed to deliver.”

The President’s full statement is provided below.

Background
The Armenian Genocide was the centrally planned and systematically executed slaughter of the Armenian people, carried out by the Ottoman Turkish Government from 1915-1923.  The Greek and Assyrian / Chaldean / Syriac communities suffered the same fate, with over 2.5 million Christians killed in that time period. April 24th is the international day of commemoration of the Armenian Genocide.

The United States embarked on an unprecedented international humanitarian campaign, mandated by Congress in 1916 through the establishment of Near East Relief, saving over 130,000 orphans and some 1 million survivors of the Armenian Genocide by providing assistance valued at over $2.5 billion in current dollars.

The U.S. first recognized the Armenian Genocide in 1951 through a filing which was included in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Report titled: “Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” The specific reference to the Armenian Genocide appears on page 25 of the ICJ Report: “The Genocide Convention resulted from the inhuman and barbarous practices which prevailed in certain countries prior to and during World War II, when entire religious, racial and national minority groups were threatened with and subjected to deliberate extermination. The practice of genocide has occurred throughout human history. The Roman persecution of the Christians, the Turkish massacres of Armenians, the extermination of millions of Jews and Poles by the Nazis are outstanding examples of the crime of genocide.”

President Ronald Reagan reaffirmed the Armenian Genocide in 1981. The U.S. House of Representatives adopted legislation on the Armenian Genocide in 1975, 1984 and 1996.  Forty-nine U.S. states have recognized the Armenian Genocide through resolution or proclamation.

Earlier this month, Representatives Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) spearheaded Armenian Genocide legislation (H.Res.296) calling for the proper remembrance of the crime, ending U.S. complicity in its denial and urging public education in an effort to prevent future genocides.  The legislation currently has 89 cosponsors.  A similar resolution in the Senate (S.Res.150) spearheaded by Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) has 16 cosponsors.

Statement by the President on Armenian Remembrance Day 2019

Today, we commemorate the Meds Yeghern and honor the memory of those who suffered in one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century. Beginning in 1915, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in the final years of the Ottoman Empire. On this day of remembrance, we again join the Armenian community in America and around the world in mourning the many lives lost.

On this day, we also honor and recognize the work of those who tried to end the violence, as well as those who sought to ensure atrocities like this would not be repeated, like human rights activist and lawyer Raphael Lemkin. We recall the contributions of generous Americans who helped save lives and rebuild Armenian communities. As we honor the memory of those who suffered, we also draw inspiration from the courage and resiliency of the Armenian people who, in the face of tremendous adversity, built vibrant communities around the world, including in the United States.

We pledge to learn from past tragedies so as to not to repeat them. We welcome the efforts of Armenians and Turks to acknowledge and reckon with their painful history. And we stand with the Armenian people in recalling the lives lost during the Meds Yeghern and reaffirm our commitment to a more peaceful world.