One of America’s most effective, successful and respected charitable institutions has damaged itself seriously but not necessarily irreparably.
The leaders of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation injected their movement into one of the country’s most divisive issues: abortion. Polls show that the American people are equally divided between pro-choice and pro-life, as advocates for the two sides call themselves. The Cure’s officials managed to offend both of them within one fateful week.
Nancy G. Brinker, the chief operating officer of the Cure, famous for its campaign against breast cancer, announced that it would halt its partnership with Planned Parenthood, another effective, successful and respected charitable institution and stop giving it about $700,000 a year to finance counseling and arrangements for breast examinations and educational programs in its nationwide network.
An explosion erupted. Some officials of the Cure resigned in anger. Some of its affiliates demanded exemption from the new policy. Boycotts began against corporations that had financed its pink-ribbon road races. Outraged criticism went viral on the Internet. Many contributors said they would stop giving to the Cure. Donations to Planned Parenthood surged by nearly $3 million, including a $250,000 matching grant from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Ms. Brinker, sensing her blunder, quickly reversed course and apologized to everyone. She announced that the funding of Planned Parenthood would be restored, at least for the present. Her move, naturally, stirred outrage that she had caved in to the pro-choice advocates.
Certain facts should be kept in mind in judging the matter: The campaign against breast cancer must go on.
Planned Parenthood, while it does facilitate abortion where deemed appropriate, keeps its actions to detect and combat breast cancer meticulously separate.
The niggling complaint that Planned Parenthood does not perform mammograms is nonsense. Neither do family doctors. They all refer patients to clinics that actually do the mammograms.
The Republican congressman whose investigation of Planned Parenthood was one of the reasons given for the decision to halt the funding should be disregarded. The organization scrupulously avoids using any federal money for abortions.
The recent resignation of Karen Handel, Komen’s senior vice president for public policy, should help the charity get back on track. Ms. Handel ran unsuccessfully in 2010 for governor of Georgia on a platform that included a pledge to halt all state funding of Plannned Parentood operations. In her campaign blog, she wrote: “Since I am pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.” She acknowledged that she took part in the defunding decision, and several former Komen employees have said that she was a driving force behind it.
To retrieve its broad popularity and public participation, the Cure must stand by its latest decision and, as earlier, keep clear of the national disagreement over abortion.
The Cure, as well as the federal and state governments and the public as a whole, should treat the question of abortion as a matter not for politics, but for a woman and her family and her doctor to determine.
Excellent editorial. Hopefully both Komen and PP can come out of this stronger. Hopefully the zealots on the radical right can come to their senses and avoid their witchhunts. Unfortuately, I’m not holding my breath on that one.
So true. Breast health for both women and men (men do get breast cancer) should not be a political issue. For that matter neither should a women’s right to decide what’s best for her body.
You are right. This sort of thing should not be a political issue. However, no one is more politicized than Planned Parenthood & I, a breast cancer survivor, do not want my money spent on abortions. Right now, fetuses are considered expendable by many. Who will be next?
I was surprised to learn that Komen has revenues about $400 million, but ONLY 15% funds research !
And even “Approximately $35 million (8.8 percent) came from interest and dividends and gains on investments.[25]”
Are you surprised that the BDN editorial board couldn’t spend the few seconds to find that out?
Thus the $10 I gave Komen, only $3.20 went direct cancer issues – a lot less than I expected.
” 15 percent on research awards and grants, 12 percent on screening and 5 percent on treatment.”
Your money wouldn’t have been spent on abortions. The money Komen donated to Planned Parenthood went to breast exams and mammograms… and it only funded a minority of the $ Planned Parenthood spends on those activites anyway.
Planned Parenthood does far, far more than abortion services. For many low income women they are the only women’s health clinic they have access to, and they provide a wide range of services that anyone would find commendable.
Agreed – but possibly women aren’t being given all the information needed to make a decision. There’s been significant enough studies and reports that indicate there might be a connection between abortion and breast cancer.
http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/The_Link.htm
Who is Karen Malec? Does she have a medical background in oncology or gynecology? Has this assertion been supported by any major Cancer research center?
The National Cancer Institute concluded that there is no such link in 2004:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6446707/#.TzfMfvlnDmc
Also please research the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons whose primary function is as a political advocacy group comprised of approx. 3000 politically conservative members. Not to be confused with the Association of American Physicians.
Good link – they also included opposing wiews at the end. I had found this pamphlet also : http://www.bcpinstitute.org/booklet4.htm
even medical science isn’t off target anymore for political action. Shame
The point is that this editorial leaves out many salient facts, such as PP just refers clients to other organizations for mammograms.
Thank you for that link.
Further investigation on the publications of BCP finds: Ethics and Medics (Catholic Bioethics Center), Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (the conservative political advocacy group as mentioned in previous post), The Linacre Quarterly (Catholic Medical Association), the National Right to Life Committee …. do you see a pattern?
Note: Dr. Brind’s research was reviewed by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 2000 however they concluded in 2003 that there was no link between abortion and breast cancer.
Sure hope you’re right !
I did review my original post and used “possibly” – and as you state – there are groups of professionals (of a conservative bent) who use the studies they support. It takes a while for some studies to become commonly accepted by the mass medical providers. One example I recall is that it took 15-20 years before the medical establishment understood that many ulcers were caused by bacteria and cured with anti-biotics.
Hey we are Planned Parenthood and we should have our beak in all funding for women!
The PP Mafia wins another one. Read about how PP was originally founded by Margret Sanger, a woman who promoted eugenics and racist ideology. Recent investigative journalism has also brought to light how PP takes money from donors who specify that they want the money to go to minority abortions.
That’s why one can find so many of their clinics close by the check cashing outfits in the ghetto’s. Rental places are usually not too far away either. Wonder what unspoken policies created that situation.
Liberals:the people who politicize every little aspect of our lives to advance their agenda.
wow, project much?
While Margaret Sanger *was* associated with the eugenics movement during the 1920s (as were a number of other famous people, and in fact she argued against a number of their positions), to claim that Planned Parenthood’s *sole* purpose was to promote a “eugenics and racist ideology” is out and out crap. Sanger’s own mother’s life was cut short as a result of 18 pregnancies (11 live births)! Cf.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M…
Since you refuse to quote Ms. Planned Parenthood’s Eugenics beliefs..here they are from Wikipedia….
“As part of her efforts to promote birth control, Sanger found common
cause with proponents of eugenics, believing that they both sought to
“assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit.”[72] Sanger was a proponent of negative eugenics,
which aims to improve human hereditary traits through social
intervention by reducing reproduction by those considered unfit.
Sanger’s eugenic policies included an exclusionary immigration policy,
free access to birth control methods and full family planning autonomy for the able-minded, and compulsory segregation or sterilization for the profoundly retarded.[73][74] In her book The Pivot of Civilization, she advocated coercion to prevent the “undeniably feeble-minded” from procreating.[75]
Although Sanger supported negative eugenics, she asserted that eugenics
alone was not sufficient, and that birth control was essential to
achieve her goals.[76][77]
Here are some quotes from Ms. Planned Parenthood herself about the need for abortion and birth control..
” Organized charity itself is the symptom of a malignant social disease. Those vast, complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and to diminish the spread of misery and destitution and all the menacing evils that spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil, are the surest sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding and perpetuating constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents and dependents.10
In another passage, she decries the burden of “human waste” on society:
It [charity] encourages the healthier and more normal sections of the world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant [emphasis added].11
She concluded,
The most serious charge that can be brought against modern “benevolence” is that it encourages the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents and dependents. These are the most dangerous elements in the world community, the most devastating curse on human progress and expression.12 “
Nothing you’ve quoted from contradicts what I wrote previously — that Sanger had indeed embraced aspects of eugenics at one point during her long life, but that was *not* the basis for founding Planned Parenthood.
“The publications of the Eugenics Laboratory all tend to show that a high rate of fertility is correlated with extreme poverty, recklessness, deficiency, and delinquency; similarly, that among the more intelligent, this rate of fertility decreases. But the scientific eugenists [sic] fail to recognize that this restraint of fecundity is due to a deliberate foresight and is a conscious effort to elevate standards of living for the family and the children of the responsible — and possibly more selfish — sections of the community. The appeal to enter again into competitive childbearing, for the benefit of nation or race, or any other abstraction, will fall on deaf ears.” — Margaret Sanger, *Pivot of Civilization*
Similarly, further on,
“In passing, we should here recognize the difficulties presented by the idea of ‘fit’ and ‘unfit.’ Who is to decide this question? The grosser, the more obvious, the more undeniably feebleminded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind. But among the writings of the representative Eugenists [sic], one cannot ignore the distinct middle-class bias that prevails.”
So she learned to “tone it down” a bit. Still the same message of contempt for humanity which is what all pro-choicers have in common, whether they realize it or not, or are willing to admit it or not makes no difference. The rest of us can see your stripes quite clearly, and they are most defective, ugly, and deformed. But, I don’t want to wipe you and your kind out because of it.
Seems to me that most of the “anti-choicers” only care about humanity before it’s born!
Let’s do a little thought experiment:
There’s a single-story building that’s on fire and it’s about to be totally engulfed. You know that at one end of the building there’s a room in it with a test-tube full of fertilized embryos. At the other end of the building is a room with a new-born baby in a crib. You only have time to run to one room. Which room will you run to? Numbers dictate which one you *should* run to — but I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that — faced with that choice — hardly anyone will go there. Because, after all, it’s about *humanity*.
That post is the most foolish of the day. Typical of the left to deal with inane hypotheticals and logical gymnastics to try and score a point.
Curious that you don’t answer the question — evasive tactics much?!
Planned parenthood is an abortion mill plain and simple. They have performed abortions on african-americans at a much higher rate than all other races. Much like their founders intended. They should not get one penny of taxpayer money and please spare me from the claims of keeping the money used to kill babies seperate. However any private organazation should be allowed to give to whatever cause they love.
Komen ended their funding of PP based on their own stated criteria. The politics of this episode occurred when they backtracked against their own policies due to the outrage of the pro-abortion zealots. I gave to Komen once before I knew about their ties to PP. I won’t be giving again until they change their ways.
That is how freedom works.
But I’m encourgaed by how even though “Nancy G. Brinker, the chief operating officer of the Cure, famous for its campaign against breast cancer, announced that it would halt its partnership with Planned Parenthood, another effective, successful and respected charitable institution and stop giving it about $700,000 a year to finance counseling and arrangements for breast examinations and educational programs in its nationwide network. ”
… but your politics being more important than the Cure was soundly rejected, at the end of the day.
So it goes.
….
Amen, and I agree, very well said
Learn more about it before you post. If funding to PP was cut because they were “under investigation” (a trumped up “investigation” begun by an anti-choice zealot), then why wasn’t Penn State’s $7.5 million dollar grant from Komen pulled as well (since Penn State was being investigated).
Are you saying that you oppose abortion but child molestation is ok with you? Don’t bothering answering that. It will be nothing more than partisan zealot drivel anyway.
Komen did not take the funding away from Penn State when it was/is under investigation for one of their own molesting children. They were not going by their stated criteria but instead were driven by a woman with a cause against PP.
Komen isn’t keeping clear of the abortion debate, they’ve taken a side. Had people been aware of their ties to Planned Parenthood, they wouldn’t have been contributing to begin with. I was also interested to learn that “The Cure” is not a research based organization. They make emotionally charged pleas for assistance, suggesting that all women benefit from the work they do. False.
But then you’re fine with their “ties to Penn State” I assume, and the endorsement of child abuse it must imply?
I do agree with you about Komen though, they are not a charity worthy of funding— your donations go into more ‘awareness building’ of the Komen ‘for the Cure’ events than it does actual research.
Maybe Komen didn’t want to be associated with an organization (PP) that’s sole purpose when founded was eugenics and slowing the rate of births in the minority population.
But their sole purpose now is free or low cost healthcare for women and Komen should want to be associated with an agency that does that.
Not make a political firestorm where they show their hypocracy.
And abortions. Why should Komen even bother, they should stick to funding cancer research..not the liberals pet causes.
I think funding mammograms and breast cancer screenings (what they were funding with planned parenthood) is exactly the type of thing a breast cancer charity should be doing.
But I will donate directly to Planned Parenthood for this purpose, not Komen. Most of the money you donate to Komen goes to promoting the Komen charity, not actual research or prevention.
Komen’s donation to Planed Parenthood was to fund BREAST EXAMINATIONS.
Only 3% of clients at Planned Parenthood use their abortion services. For the math impaired that means 97% or 97 out of 100 clinets use their other services.
While Margaret Sanger *was* associated with the eugenics movement during the 1920s (as were a number of other famous people, and in fact she argued against a number of their positions), to claim that Planned Parenthood’s *sole* purpose “was eugenics and slowing the rate of births in the minority population” is out and out crap. Sanger’s own mother’s life was cut short as a result of 18 pregnancies (11 live births)! Cf.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger
I don’t know what this organization “PP” is that you are talking about, then.
Planned Parenthood fulfills many women’s health needs, only a minority of it is abortion services. They spend millions every year on mammograms and breast exams, which have nothing to do with ‘slowing the rate of births in the minority population’.
There we go again !! LOL Define services?
“only a minority of it is abortion services.”
Completely outrageous statistic – they count anyone walking in the door, taking a pamplet or flyer as a SerVICE and EQUAL to an abortion. Thus their phony 3% is more like 97% of costs and services for pregnant (woman’s health care) women !
PS. I’m pro-choice and anti-abortion – if our taxes funds abortion then they should also equally fund alternative solutions or none at all.
And also Convivial – planned Parenthood DOESN’T do mammograms. Sheez.
Sorry…Komen is hurting as a result and the curtain was pulled away. First it brought on Handel, a religious zealot to run public policy…and predictably that led to a disaster as she decided to push her political agenda on the Foundation. She didn’t do it in a vacuum, the board supported it.
However, the real problem is what happened AFTER the firestorm…Brinker came out and said early and often that this was not Handel’s decision and that she wasn’t really involved…and that it came about because Komen doesn’t fund organizations (like Planned Parenthood) which are under investigation. Of course this “investigation” was a trumped up charge made by a hardcore right-wing anti-choice Florida representative. Leave it to the South to lead the nation.
However, Komen didn’t take the same actions (suspending funding) from Penn State when it was under investigation (Penn State is the recipient of a $7.5 million grant from Komen).
Now back to that “Handel wasn’t really involved” story that Brinker told…Well, Handel was then forced out (odd thing to do if this firestorm wasn’t a result of HER decision) AND Handel herself has spoken out EVERY SINGLE DAY since her ouster that this WAS her decision (to pull funding from Planned Parenthood).
Long story short…the people at Komen will lie to you to save their own skins. And if they can’t be honest with those who raise the $$$$$$$$$ for their Foundation, then who can they be honest with. What will they lie about next?
So a private organization establishes appropriate guidelines for making grants, acts consistently within these guidelines, and is pilloried by Congress, the press, and knee-jerk liberals for doing so. “Principled” news outlets like the BDN run screaming, assuming that this organization is attempting to trample on their “rights” to take the lives of the unborn, then celebrate its cowardly decision to flop under pressure.
And some call that courage.
In The Age of Obama, “philanthropy” is redefined. It now means that:
1) if you make charitable contributions, you are no longer allowed to deduct them from your income taxes, because the federal government wants all the power to determine which favored causes and classes receives the bulk of benevolence.
2) if you do not support this forced philanthropy (gained at the point of an FBI gun as directed by the IRS), touted daily by Mr. Obama in the form of higher income taxes, then you are labeled “greedy”.
3) if you run a highly reputable organization doing excellent work in support of women’s health, you risk your superb reputation and donor support if you decide against granting money to organizations that take the lives of thousands and thousands of (unborn) women each year.
In the Age of Obama, up is down, right is wrong, and wrong is right. Pres. Obama and VP Biden give less than 1% to charity each year, and yet their contender Mr. Romney is tarred as a rich greedy capitalist despite giving a far great percentage, totaling millions each year. The likes of Ms. Renee Ordway are given weekly column inches to display their foolishness. Let us thank God for the First Amendment so we can identify then promptly ignore their silly advice.
Bear in mind PP’s argument, parroted by the BDN above, that clinical breast screenings are affected by Komen’s withdrawal of support. But as anyone with even half a clue knows, money is fungible, so the dollars you now give Komen they then give a % to PP, which goes into their great big pot from which they serve over 300,000 abortions each year.
This Mainer is done with Komen.
Komen did not take the funding away from Penn State ($7.5 million) when it was/is under investigation for one of their own molesting children. They were not going by their stated criteria but instead were driven by a woman with a cause against PP.
Where is the consistency? Or is it just certain types of investigations?
You know what’s interesting though, this is an organization that relies on the public for support. The outrage didn’t just come from politicians, it game from average Americans, donors, supporters, etc. If they want to take a stance? Fine, but prepared to deal with and accept the backlash.
Don’t mischaracterize this as some democrat v republican axe to grind.
This was a charity making a poor policy decision that took away funding for low income women getting breast cancer screenings, and outraged Americans calling them on it.
This is the same charity that sues charities who dare run events with the phrase “for the cure”, and this is the same charity that uses the majority of its funding for ‘awareness’– of the Susan G Komen Foundation.
Komen needs to re-examine their commitment to a cure, because the act like their commitment is to themselves instead.
The Foundation has gotten too big for it’s britches. They are predatory and, if one reads the news regularly about them, constantly suing other groups who try to use pink anything when raising money for breast cancer research. That doesn’t sound to magnanimous to me. This latest faux pas is just another example of the what the organization has become, a political force which is attempting to set social policy. Now before everyone jumps on me for my opinion I do not hesitate to say that yes, the Foundation continues to support breast cancer research and that is a good thing. Unfortunately they have expanded their agenda to include the aforementioned desire to influence social policy and law.
I lost all respect for SGKF when they began suing other charities for using the word cure. This last situation is the kicker. So little of the money SGKF brings in goes to research it’s not worth donating to them anyway. I make a point to NOT buy pink products and I’ve been taught by a very amazing stage 4 breast cancer warrior that komen isn’t what they are cracked up to be. ALWAYS think before you pink.
Agree 100%: very few people know about this. No other charity can use the phrase “for a cure” without fear of being sued by this foundation. Makes NO sense. I support the cause, but will never give another dime to them (there are other BC foundations).
Why is PP shaking down Komen. What do they have in common? Kinda at both ends of the spectrum
http://lnk.co/IIFDQ
I’d like to know why cancer charities/research places have been around since 1860 +/- and cancer is killing more now at younger ages. But they have made weapons worse, can tell you what a mummy ate 3000 years ago, can figure out ‘who done it’
Komen ‘s to my understanding have advertised as “searching for the cure” not ” seaarching for victims” and for anyone who likes to read things into this, that was not said don’t bother there is no other implied meanings and there is plenty of sympathy for those who have it and those who died needlessly from it.. I’ve lost family and the cancer history started with the government spraying DDT all over the place.
Cancer is not killing more people at younger ages. Death rates have declined and 5 year survival rates have improved. Comments like this are easy when your facts are wrong…
25 years ago I heard of maybe 3 people. Today I haven’t dared to look at the obits, at least once a week for months there was yet someone else I knew.
I’m not looking at any “statistic”. which is rather bull crap and misleading, I’m counting the people I know, thats where my figures come from.
So if thats my imagination or false count on my part, then maybe you can tell me why all these people haven’t written?
The statistics are clear— we are getting better both at diagnosing cancer and surviving it.
You read about more people with cancer because we now know what they were dying of. 100 years ago many were seen as dying of ‘old age’ or ‘sh!t happens’. Also, our population has grown to be 10x+ what it was in the 1860’s (~30 million vs. ~300 million now). And more of that population is getting old enough to get cancer, not dying early of polio, scarlet fever, influenza, etc.
Without good cancer research we would not have learned of the consequences of using DDT or smoking cigarettes (an activity that soared in the early 20th century).
So to answer your question of “why”— more people + more carcinogens + more knowledge = more identified cases of cancer.
But the rate of fatal cancer diagnosis has dropped, more people are surviving and far more people are being diagnosed early enough to be saved. And we have cancer charities/research places to thank for this.
But honestly, if you live in Maine and want to make a real difference in cancer research, donate to Jackson Labs, not Komen. They will use the money for real research, not pink ribbons and advertising campaigns.
Too bad like all other “groups” that are collecting money to fight a for a cure…………..they become political and spend almost all the funding on giving it to the right person in the political world NOT to a scientific place that is researching the cure. The Komen family should dissolve this very rich entity…….it has nothing to do with breast cancer and a cure. It has all to do with the big wigs living the rich life.
I think they should lose their tax-exempt status for a start.