Great Moments in Birth Control

A couple of stories from different ends of the birth control debate:

PORTLAND, Maine — Pupils at a city middle school will be able to get birth control pills and patches at their student health center after the local school board approved the proposal Wednesday evening.

The plan, offered by city health officials, makes King Middle School the first middle school in Maine to make a full range of contraception available to students in grades 6 through 8, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

There are no national figures on how many middle schools, where most students range in age from 11 to 13, provide such services.

"It's very rare that middle schools do this," said Divya Mohan, a spokeswoman for the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care.

The Portland School Committee voted 5-2 for the measure.

Woe is Portland. And from the nation's heartland:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Planned Parenthood's Overland Park, Kan., clinic was charged Wednesday with 107 counts, including accusations that it provided unlawful late-term abortions.

Johnson County prosecutor Phill Kline charged the clinic with 23 felony counts and 84 misdemeanor counts, according to court records. Besides 29 misdemeanor counts of providing unlawful late-term abortions, the clinic is charged with multiple counts of making a false writing, failure to maintain records and failure to determine viability.

These stories pretty much comment on themselves.