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FPG / Retrofile / Getty ImagesJoan Durrant, a child clinical psychologist and professor of family sciences at the University of Manitoba, has studied the effects of spanking on children for years.

Children who are spanked may feel depressed and devalued, and their sense of self-worth can suffer. Harsh punishments can wind up backfiring because they can foster lying in children who are desperate to avoid being spanked. Later in life, physical punishment is linked to mental-health problems including depression, anxiety and drug and alcohol use. There’s neuroimaging evidence that physical punishment may alter parts of the brain involved in performance on IQ tests and up the likelihood of substance abuse. And there’s also early data that spanking could affect areas of the brain involved in emotion and stress regulation.via TIME

It’s believed that children who were spanked with frequency — often considered child abuse — have higher cortisol levels and compromised immune systems leading to shortened longevity. In spite of these increasingly gruesome statistics, it’s believed that as many as 90% of American parents use corporal punishment on their kids.

Related reading: Study: Child Abuse Affects More US Kids than SIDS TIME

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Karen Handel, the woman at the center of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure vs Planned Parenthood, resigned Tuesday as senior vice president for policy at Komen. Handel, who opposes abortion and called for eliminating government money to Planned Parenthood during her 2010 campaign for governor of Georgia, was among Komen’s senior leaders to changed the foundations funding policy late in 2011. The new rules resulted in a halt of grants to 19 of Planned Parenthood’s, or a loss of about $700,000 in funding.

A fire storm of controversy and criticism swept social media last week, touching the hearts and minds of women and men from every political persuasion, including prolife supporters who were furious to see abortion politics dragged into breast cancer funding.

While Komen issued an apology at week’s end, the firestorm has spilled into election politics, with Republican candidates for president criticizing the foundations decision to reverse itself.

Related reading: Controversy Over Stem-Cell Research Keeps Charities On Sidelines NPR

Komen insists that it has no official ban on supporting stem-cell research, although communications posted on the foundation’s website (now removed) said that Komen didn’t support such initiatives. As we reported last night, Komen has denied reports in LifeNews that they cancelled $12 million worth of funding at America’s top universities.