Planned Parenthood’s Fig Leaf

[Geee]

National Review:

 

Mona Charen

Planned Parenthood would appear to have won this latest skirmish in the abortion wars. The Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure, having first decided to withdraw future grants to the world’s largest abortion provider, quickly retreated under a barrage of accusations, complaints, and threats.

No fewer than 26 Democratic senators signed a letter to Komen saying, in part, that “it would be tragic if any woman — let alone thousands of women — lost access to these potentially lifesaving screenings because of a politically motivated attack. We earnestly hope that you will put women’s health before partisan politics and reconsider this decision.”

Intoning that “politics has no place in health care,” New York mayor Michael Bloomberg made a $250,000 matching grant to Planned Parenthood. Ever alert to the politically correct posture on everything, Bloomberg added that “breast-cancer screening saves lives and hundreds of thousands of women rely on Planned Parenthood for access to care.”

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But the real firepower came from the press and the Internet. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell bore down on Nancy Brinker, the Komen Foundation’s founder, pressing her to admit that women’s health would suffer as a result of the Komen board’s decision. The decision was “all about politics,” reported the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times editorialized that “for a long time Komen’s name will be connected more with ugly politics than with pink ribbons.”