Read a little bit more about him in this light piece at the Post.

Naomi Lakritz also weighs in on our 400-year-old approach to when life begins, here. (It’s past 5 am, and there’s no water in my trough!)

I’ll get the discussion started with a little debate statement.

BIRT it is okay to kill girls when a North American feminist advocates for this on the grounds of free choice but not okay when someone does so because of cultural dictates for son preference. Talk amongst yourselves.

Mr. Hope said he was worried the procedure, done with the patient in stirrups, might be a little “feminizing,” but said clinic staff acted sensitively to the situation.

You don’t say.

It won’t be until over a decade later, when I am well into the actual world of parenthood, frazzled and overwhelmed with love and impatience for the tiny creature I have created, that I will realize that if I had actually had a baby at age nineteen it might have been the very thing that would have kept me from the years and years of misery and destruction ahead of me. It won’t be until I am finally a mother myself, and not until my cheek rests against my child’s soft downy head, that I will realize the bleakness of what I did all those years before.

In the wake of Komen’s decision, the Yale School of Public Health told the Washington Post’s Sarah Kliff that its invitation to Nancy Brinker to be its commencement speaker was now “under careful review.” Because God forbid anybody doing a master’s program at an Ivy League institution should be exposed to anyone not in full 100 percent compliance with liberal orthodoxy. 

The Tories decided to just pre-empt it all by committing to not reopen the debate, period. It was broad, and it helped silence the critics — sort of — but also painted them into a corner. They can’t really do a single thing about abortion without being justifiably accused of reneging.

He goes on to say:

There’s an argument to be made that on an issue like this, there’s a moral imperative to do something regardless of past promises. But I’m not holding my breath.

And of course there is, but our Prime Minister knew that before he started in with this “we will not re-open the debate” zombie-like meme. He could have done just as well by declaring his bias to be “we will allow for freedom of speech” (who is against freedom of speech? But he chose not to do that.)

I’m quite OK with saying that the time is not now for the political debate. Furthermore, we still need to loosen the stranglehold of radical feminism on the media. So much of what pro-lifers say, think and believe is still twisted beyond recognition, the National Post being a fantastic exception for the freedom they allow. So there’s hope, but I’d wait it out for a bit of a fairer playing field.

The bulk of PP’s breast-health work is simply referring their clients to outside facilities. “Sorry, no help for you here.” In fact yesterday, Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure CEO Nancy Brinker and President Elizabeth Thompson revealed they halted funding to PP for this very reason. “We have decided not to fund, wherever possible, pass-through grants. We were giving them money, they were sending women out for mammograms. What we would like to have are clinics where we can directly fund mammograms.”

The spin continues.

I think Planned Parenthood doth protest too much. They are so up in arms over this Komen thing because they are on the brink, fighting for their lives. (Lives of unborn children, not so much.)

Watch this clip about the Komen Foundation coming under heavy fire for withdrawing funding (or, possibly not) from Planned Parenthood. Incidentally, you might catch the part where Nancy Brinker of Komen points out that Planned Parenthood sends women elsewhere for breast cancer screening and that they want to be directly in contact with those agencies. Makes sense. But apparently incomprehensible to Andrea Mitchell, the interviewer.

Here’s the thing. Planned Parenthood may yet be funded by Komen. So it’s hard to see what the story is, other than the media having histrionics.

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Update: About 30 seconds after publishing this post, I got word of this petition. I stand with Komen. I’ll sign it, and I think you should too. Whether or not Planned Parenthood continues to receive their funding in the future is irrelevant. The fact is, they are taking substantial flak for something they have done right now, and they ought to be aware that many people appreciate it.