Deirdre McQuade (USCCB pro-life spokesperson) vs. Cecile Richards (president of Planned Parenthood)

Through some contacts I've been alerted to a very important debate currently taking place between Deirdre McQuade, the planning director for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities (pictured left), and Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood (right).

GoogleNews is providing a semi-official forum for their comments as a follow-up to a recent Associated Press story on the topic of Plan B's reception, growing use and continued controversial nature, one year after its being made available to the public.

McQuade has a much-longer comment than Richards, and also gets a chance to provide a helpful link to a USCCB informational page. These additions are gratifying since she is given only scant coverage in the AP article.

Somehow, I doubt Richards will post a follow-up comment. Truth is on the pro-life side of the abortion debate, no matter how many statistics the opposition tries to toss around. And for this reason I'm especially happy to see developments such as this Google News response and follow-up forum. Blogs, comment boards and the like allow the pro-life message to flourish despite its being ostracized from the mainstream media reports.

Incidentally, in the quote given by Richards to the AP, she is very careful to habituate this perception of the pro-life movement, saying "... there is a fringe group of folks in this country who seem determined to prevent women from getting emergency contraception." Spaces like this Google Forum make it more difficult for Richards to dismiss and demean such "pro-life fringe" groups. Groups that she is afraid to debate on a more even playing field.