Bizarre, Politics, Society

Race For A [Political] Cure: Komen Cuts Off Funding For Planned Parenthood

Susan G. Komen for the Cure has previously been ridiculed for its bullying of other charities and its lawsuit against any charity using “for the cure” in its name or advertising. Now it is receiving criticism for cutting off funding for Planned Parenthood affiliates and preventive screening services. It is the first time the organization has cut off such funding based on a new rule involving organizations under investigation by Congress.


The House oversight and investigations subcommittee announced in the fall that it would investigate Planned Parenthood’s funding. The organization often becomes a hot button issue during election periods due to the abortion controversy.

Komen has been targeted in a campaign to defund Planned Parenthood. Last year, it hired a vice president who had previously advocated for the group’s defunding in her run for Georgia governor.

Source: Washington Post

168 thoughts on “Race For A [Political] Cure: Komen Cuts Off Funding For Planned Parenthood”

  2. It seems most who posted on here are angry at this decision. I support Komen in their decision. They took a stand to not support an organization that gives free or low cost screenings for breast cancer through the front door that is also killing millions of babies out the back door.

    It is their decision to not support PP. And it’s your decision where you want to put your money. That is the wonderful thing about living in the good ol US of A:) We have the ability to support whomever believes how we believe.

  4. Are there legal issues here? Komen operates as a 501c3 tax-exempt organization which does carry some restrictions on political/religious advocacy. I know they’ve framed this as an internal policy issue, but they are, in fact, violating their mission (for which they were granted tax-exempt status) with their ‘new’ policy.

    There are also issues related to the duties of nonprofit corps, specifically the ‘duty of care’ and the ‘duty of loyalty.’ Komen’s egregious unforced errors and PR debacles directly threaten the org and demonstrate an inability or unwillingness on the part of the board to anticipate and mitigate threats. Isn’t that a dereliction of the duty of care? As a nonprofit executive (of a much, much smaller org), I am actually stunned by how thoughtless and ill-conceived many of their policies and ‘initiatives’ are. This is a group entrusted with billions in public funds. It’s really mind-boggling.

    The duty of loyalty requires that board members ALWAYS and without exception put the interests of the organization ahead of their own. Isn’t allowing the political/religious agenda of individual board members a clear conflict of interest? Especially when it directly violates your mission statement?

    Not sure if there are any remedies or who would have standing to sue–maybe donors who feel they were ‘baited and switched’ or who feel frivolous brand lawsuits are a misuse of donations–but one would think the IRS might be taking a second look at their status given some of their more bone-headed recent public moves?

  7. Swathmoremom
    Va. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/1/senate-passes-mandate-ultrasounds-abortion/
    only repub against, 2 dems for.
    In addition, they are working to end abortion services: “Virginia lawmakers, too, are proposing their share of abortion bills this year, including a “fetal pain” measure. The state also approved temporary regulations last year to regulate abortion clinics like hospitals, and a public comment period is currently under way for developing permanent ones.”

    We are at war, primarily with republicans who want smaller government and regs unless it allows them access to the inside of a woman’s body.

  8. idealist, While blue dogs vote the wrong way on a variety of things, they are not the ones conducting the war on women. Solid red republicans are. You should see what Perry and the republican legislature passed in Texas.

  10. Just got a reminder notice form the Breast Cancer Click. com click site (where each click helps raise money for mammograms, The subject line read :We’re not Komen, please keep clicking to provide FREE mammograms!
    Text in part in big letters – We are not affiliated with the Susan G, Koman foundation.
    Koman must be proud of itself.

  11. ( I stopped being a supporter of Komen when they began advertising constantly – seemed more self aggrandizing then caring about their initial reason for being.)

  12. nonymously Yours agreed. I wonder if maybe an essentially repub org. all the time, just staying true to their roots by going along with the party they always went along with (?)

  13. Anonymously yours, Just saw your comment, I think, at least on the face of it, I agree. You have tax exempt status then you can’t (shouldn’t(?) ) be partisan.

    1. Carol,

      I have these feelings from personal life experiences….I do not believe that they should be able decry moral issues and then hide behind a grand tax scheme system in place and then Order you to do or not do….I think this blurs the true Separation of Church and State…

      on a side note I saw Nancy Brinker on TV this morning…She did not look too happy…..

      Susan G. Komen Foundation Cuts Planned Parenthood Funding Over Abortion

      Feb 2, 2012 12:32 AM EST

      Women’s health advocates are furious with the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s move to stop funding Planned Parenthood. But by bowing to GOP pressure, the breast cancer charity hurts itself most, says Michelle Goldberg.

      *******************
      What really happened seems clear: Komen bowed to political pressure. Until quite recently, Planned Parenthood wasn’t controversial among Republicans. It had a long history of conservative backing—Dwight Eisenhower once co-chaired the Planned Parenthood Federation along with Harry Truman, and Barry Goldwater championed it. It’s not surprising that Ann Romney once donated to the organization; lots of Republican women did. And pro-choice Republican women like Brinker were fairly common—even Laura Bush said she backed Roe v. Wade.
      ******************

      As the Republican Party’s stance toward Planned Parenthood has changed, so has Komen’s. In April, it hired Karen Handel as its new senior vice president of public policy. In 2010, when Handel ran, unsuccessfully, for the Georgia Republican gubernatorial nomination, she campaigned against abortion and Planned Parenthood—and won Sarah Palin’s endorsement. Meanwhile, other Republicans have put pressure on Brinker. David Vitter, the Louisiana Republican senator whose career as a family values champion has somehow survived multiple prostitution scandals, told Newsmax that he wrote her a letter in May “urging her to take this step.” There was probably no way Komen could maintain links to both Planned Parenthood and the GOP.

      http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/02/susan-g-komen-foundation-cuts-planned-parenthood-funding-over-abortion.html

      Seems like thinking has really changed….

  14. “Komen’s absolutely a political organization, and one of their most recent political moves was to hire as it’s Vice President of Communications one Karen Handel, a Sarah Palin-endorsed, rabidly anti-choice failed gubernatorial candidate from Georgia. Even though the services that Komen grants support at Planned Parenthood are breast exams for poor women, Handel was vocally in favor of defunding the organization as a candidate. In addition, Komen’s founderNancy Brinker was a major donor to George W. Bush”
    http://allegraelizabeth.tumblr.com/

  17. Jill, I have a close friend that lobbies for Planned Parenthood. Things have changed in the state legislatures. Pro-choice republicans are few and far between. The party platform is anti-choice and anti-woman, and it is becoming increasingly so.

  18. I see I didn’t answer all your fact based questions. Here is a statement for Republicans for pro-choice. You don’t hear many things the way our news is censored. People aren’t being quiet, you just don’t get a chance to hear them, just as you rarely get a chance to hear actual progressive voices on the left.

    “PRO-CHOICE VICTORY IN MISSISSIPPI
    On November 8, 2011 one of the most radical anti-choice bills ever introduced went down to overwhelming defeat after months of rallying pro-choice voters to stand up for women’s right to choose.

    The so called “Personhood Initiative” is the newest organized anti-choice assault on women. But with many groups working together the pro-choice movement kept its record intact of defeating EVERY single anti-choice initiative our opposition has come up with.

    RFC Chair, Ann Stone, spent weeks on the phone calling independents, RFC donors, moderate voters and any names of individuals who claimed they were undecided on this controversial bill.

    RFC sent out thousands of letters urging not only pro-choice and mixed -hoice voters to make sure they got to the polls — but also sounded the alarm that if this bill passed — it would set a very dangerous precedent that other anti-choice states would soon follow.”

  19. Elaine,

    I will respectfully decline to argue with you about what I write on this blog since it is clear to me that you often have difficulty understanding what I write. I will say to claim I have made any statements remotely like comparing Republican women to cancer cells is just false.

    Here is the group: http://www.democratsforlife.org You will find others if you google for democrats who are pro-life and republicans who are pro-choice.

  20. The Komen Foundation Pinkwashes Anti-choicers, Punks Planned Parenthood
    Katha Pollitt on February 1, 2012
    http://www.thenation.com/blog/166026/komen-foundation-pinkwashes-anti-choicers-punks-planned-parenthood

    Excerpt:
    Remember when anti-choicers got LifeWay Christian Resources to pull its pink-covered Here’s Hope Breast Cancer Bibles from Walmart and other stores because one dollar of every sale went to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation? The antis were upset that the wealthy and influential breast-cancer charity made grants to Planned Parenthood for breast exams and mammograms for low-income women. And remember when Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio, told his flock to stop raising money for Komen because someday in the future it might endorse stem cell research? Crazy, right?

    The anti-choice movement can be so clumsy, and so weird, we forget that it is also smart and strategic and busy busy busy. Because while you were shaking your head over pink Bibles and stem-cell futurology, Komen was hiring Karen Handel as senior vice president for public policy. Handel is not your typical philanthropy administrator. She is a Republican pol, a former Georgia secretary of state, who ran in the 2010 gubernatorial primary, with endorsements from Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and anti-immigrant finger-pointing Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. At that time she described herself as “staunchly and unequivocally pro-life,” opposed to stem cell research and a fan of crisis pregnancy centers—places that have repeatedly been shown to use scare tactics and misinformation to dissuade women from seeking abortions. She vowed to eliminate from the state budget pass-through grants to Planned Parenthood for breast and cervical cancer screenings. Interestingly, she had previously supported these grants, using the exact arguments defenders of Komen’s PP grants are making now: PP is the only organization capable of doing the work—reaching low-income women, for whom the PP clinic is often the only medical care they get—and the grant money does not fund abortions. Handel’s turnaround shows you how quickly the anti-choicers have claimed formerly neutral turf: in only a few years a relationship deemed normal and good—in Georgia!—and the only existing way of providing needed services was branded with the mark of the beast.

    Planned Parenthood says Komen grants totaled around $680,000 in 2011 and $580,000 the year before, accounting for around 170,000 of the 4 million breast exams it has given in the last five years. It’s pretty shocking that Komen would deprive of services women it has itself admitted have no other way of getting them. As Jodi Jacobson reports on RH Reality Check, in 2011 Komen itself acknowledged PP’s essential role in breast care:

    While Komen Affiliates provide funds to pay for screening, education and treatment programs in dozens of communities, in some areas, the only place that poor, uninsured or under-insured women can receive these services are through programs run by Planned Parenthood.”

    The statement continued:

    These facilities serve rural women, poor women, Native American women, women of color, and the un- and under-insured. As part of our financial arrangements, we monitor our grantees twice a year to be sure they are spending the money in line with our agreements, and we are assured that Planned Parenthood uses these funds only for breast health education, screening and treatment programs.

    As long as there is a need for health care for these women, Komen Affiliates will continue to fund the facilities that meet that need.

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