Indivisible issues

There's an interesting post on the Susan G. Komen Fund/Planned Parenthood throwdown at The New Yorker's blog by Amy Davidson - Why Komen Backed Down. Here's a bit from the end of it ....

[...] Jill Lepore, in a Daily Comment that outlines the historical and political terms of the Komen fight, tells a story about Benjamin Franklin’s correspondence with his sister Jane, in which they anticipate, and then mourn, the death of another sister from breast cancer; other women in the family and their babies died early, in a time when everything associated with childbirth was more dangerous than it is today. (And that it is safer has a good deal to do, in this country, with Planned Parenthood.) These issues, Lepore writes, are not divisible, any more than a woman’s body is.

After Komen’s reversal this morning, Lepore sent me another quote from Franklin’s sister Jane: “I do not Pretend to writ a bout Politics tho I love to hear them.” There is something in there to remember, particularly when thinking about women in politics. Being quiet doesn’t mean one isn’t listening and paying attention. As Komen learned this week, many people, and many women, who wear ribbons silently are perfectly prepared to shout.