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The Komen Foundation decides not to stand with Planned Parenthood after all

Caperton

As Planned Parenthood faces repeated attacks on federal funding from legislators who seem happy to disregard women’s health as some minor fringe issue, it depends more and more on individuals and organizations that see women’s health as an essential and integral part of people’s health in general–because women are people, see–and are willing to open their hearts and wallets. This used to include Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to fund breast cancer screenings and education through Planned Parenthood. Used to. Komen is in the process of breaking off its partnership with Planned Parenthood, pulling back funds in the neighborhood of $600,000 a year.

According to a statement released by Planned Parenthood, the Komen Foundation began notifying local programs that their grants would not be renewed and hasn’t been willing to sit down with representatives from the national organization to explain what the hell is going on.

Komen’s explanation is that under their own newly adopted guidelines, they’re no longer allowed to give money to organizations under investigation by Congress. (In September, the House Oversight Committee launched an inquiry into Planned Parenthood’s use of federal funds.) It’s also worth noting, of course, that Komen’s new aggressively anti-choice vice president, Karen Handel, ran for governor of Georgia in 2010 on a platform of defunding Planned Parenthood. In a statement, Komen denied that the cuts are politically motivated (of course not) and said that they must “evolve to best meet the needs of the women [they] serve and most fully advance [their] mission,” which I thought was promoting breast health and keeping women from dying of cancer, but I’ve been wrong before.

Sadly, Planned Parenthood is not unused to falling victim to politics, but it rather smarts when the middle finger has a pink ribbon around it from an organization ostensibly devoted to women’s health. If you had some money set aside for a golf visor or a t-shirt or a cup of yogurt with a pink ribbon on it, Planned Parenthood is establishing a Breast Health Emergency Fund to try and regain some of the lost funds.

27 thoughts on The Komen Foundation decides not to stand with Planned Parenthood after all

  1. I didn’t know that Planned Parenthood was so actively involved in breast health issues. I wonder what Komen is going to do with the money they are not giving to Planned Parenthood?

  2. I’d like to publicize the Breast Health Emergency Fund link, but I don’t see anything on that page that lets me direct those funds specifically. Am I missing something?

  3. I’d like to publicize the Breast Health Emergency Fund link, but I don’t see anything on that page that lets me direct those funds specifically. Am I missing something?

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  9. I wonder what Komen is going to do with the money they are not giving to Planned Parenthood?

    They’ll donate it to the GOP Presidential candidate for 2012.

  10. Komen has always cared more about their image and marketing than the actual women they are supposed to serve. I actually donate to breast cancer organizations and I always look for an alternative. So I suggest that if you’ve donated to them before, or are considering a donation, please take your money elsewhere, like PP. The fact that an anti-choicer could rise to a position of VP in an organization focused on women’s health tells you all there is to know about them.

  11. Komen denied that the cuts are politically motivated (of course not) and said that they must “evolve to best meet the needs of the women [they] serve and most fully advance [their] mission,” which I thought was promoting breast health and keeping women from dying of cancer, but I’ve been wrong before.

    Ah, see, the key phrase here is “the women [they] serve”. Clearly, under Handel’s leadership, the foundation has decided to change _which_ women they serve, so that women who get their screenings at places like PP are no longer considered the group they serve.

    I mean, those women are all poor, but they’re not at all photogenic like Victorian orphans were, so they’re not _deserving_ poor people.

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  15. PP would have been better off with former GA Gov Sonny Perdue, who was a veterinarian and understood birth control and reproductive health. Handel’s appointment was to appease a lobby which cannot be converted to the cause: she’s Neville Chamberlain in a skirt.

  16. @Azalea, Planned Parenthood clinics provide more cancer screening than almost any other organization in the country. Women who go to them for any reason can, and usually do, get a complete health check that includes breast and cervical cancer screening. A good number of PPs actually provide onsite cervical biopsies and even treatment for abnormal cervical cells and/or early stage cervical cancer. So yeah, unlike Komen, which is essentially a funding conduit that provides no actual services itself, Planned Parenthood is very actively and intimately working daily on the front lines of cancer prevention.

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  19. I’d like to publicize the Breast Health Emergency Fund link, but I don’t see anything on that page that lets me direct those funds specifically. Am I missing something?

    As of right now, this is the link Planned Parenthood has been promoting in connection with the Komen issue. If anything more specific comes up, I’ll update.

  20. I suggest we hence forward call them “The Susan G. Khomeini Foundation”
    (h/t a commenter on ABL’s Balloon Juice post on this)

  22. Why doesn’t Komen just go away already? It’s a shitty organization, and all the money raised just goes to organize more fundraisers.. which makes no sense. I’ve always figured that the executives there were lining their pockets, rather then passing the money on.

  23. I suggest we hence forward call them “The Susan G. Khomeini Foundation”
    (h/t a commenter on ABL’s Balloon Juice post on this)

    … irrelevant, much?

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