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Breaking News: Komen Foundation Reverses Decision on Planned Parenthood
Did the Susan G. Komen Foundation go too far?
The Dallas Morning News is reporting that the Susan G. Komen Foundation has reversed its decision to discontinue funding grants to Planned Parenthood.
Writer Tom Benning scooped the story, offering the details of the statement, which reads in part:
“The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not …
We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.”
This news comes as certain local chapters of Komen for the Cure had already vowed to continue funding Planned Parenthood. According to Newsday this morning, the Connecticut chapter announced it would maintain its grants to Planned Parenthood of Southern New England.
We’ve checked the Associated Press, CNN and elsewhere, and have not seen this report confirmed by other news outlets. A quick call to the Susan G. Komen Foundation led to voicemail. We’ll just have to see how this story develops later today …
Update 11:30am: We’ve been able to confirm the reversal is true. The apology and decision reversal is now on the Komen website.
Update 11:48am: Seems the page with their statement has now gone down. It may be that too many people have tried to access it at once. I received an email from the Komen Foundation, though, with the full statement. I then received an email from the Komen Foundation with a revised version of the statement. Here it is:
Statement from Susan G. Komen Board of Directors and Founder and CEO Nancy G. Brinker
We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives. The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not. Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair. Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities. It is our hope and we believe it is time for everyone involved to pause, slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women. We urge everyone who has participated in this conversation across the country over the last few days to help us move past this issue. We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics – anyone’s politics. Starting this afternoon, we will have calls with our network and key supporters to refocus our attention on our mission and get back to doing our work. We ask for the public’s understanding and patience as we gather our Komen affiliates from around the country to determine how to move forward in the best interests of the women and people we serve.We extend our deepest thanks for the outpouring of support we have received from so many in the past few days and we sincerely hope that these changes will be welcomed by those who have expressed their concern.
It seems this means the Susan G. Komen Foundation has changed its criteria so that Planned Parenthood is once again eligible for grants. Not sure whether this means they will get them in the future, though.
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22 Comments
Amanda commented on Feb 03 12 at 11:43 amCowards.
CW commented on Feb 03 12 at 11:53 amGuess I won’t be donating to any more Komen-sponsored walks. Shame on them for caving to the pro-abortion lobby. One more sign of how entrenched the “culture of death” truly is in modern U.S. society…
Sarah commented on Feb 03 12 at 12:06 pmBabble needs to get a new writer. First, the offensive post against Paltrow, now this ridiculous piece saying that the Komen Foundation reversed their decision. They did nothing of the sort – Strollerderby even says this herself at the end. If you read the actual statement by SGK Foundation you’ll see that they left it open to deny funding to Planned Parenthood any time and for any reason. Seriously, please ask someone else to write for you. Strollerderby needs to take a few writing classes and do some fact checking before you allow her to post on your site again.
Holly commented on Feb 03 12 at 12:06 pmThe fact that Susan G. Komen has reversed its decision and will continue to fund grants to Planned Parenthood proves that the initial decision to cut them off was indeed politically motivated. So now SGK has outraged every woman who has been helped by Planned Parenthood and who supports the life-saving work that they do, in addition to outraging every pro-lifer who before now didn’t even know that they fund grants to PP. I doubt they will be able to get the majority of their supporters back with all of this backpedaling.
Noelle commented on Feb 03 12 at 12:19 pmBecause it’s so “pro-life” to pull funding for breast cancer screenings, right?
Beckie commented on Feb 03 12 at 12:20 pmNow you can look at it as them caving in to the pro-abortion lobby, or you can look at it as one of the few programs that is able to get screenings and care to women of lower-income families.
Yes, there are some women who have misused the planned parenthood programs to obtain their bad choice, but at the same time, that program has made it possible for many children to be able to live and their mothers to be healthy during the pregnancy and after.
I can not understand how any one would choose to have an abortion, but at the same time, I am not about to condemn the organizations behind them, because there are a few, very few, circumstances where I can see it being a viable option, though I would not choose such for myself.
But we have to remember that the planned parenthood program is about healthy mothers first and foremost, and many of the women who use the program cannot get care any other way.
Should we tell those women that they can’t have a child in the first place? Because that seems to be contradictory to your beliefs.
Should we also tell these women that they deserve to die painfully of cancer that could have been seen and diagnosed early enough on to take care of it?
Please think before you condemn.
Whatevs commented on Feb 03 12 at 12:21 pmRiiiiiiiight. Because Planned Parenthood’s SOLE OCCUPATION is to provide on-demand abortions to any woman, any time, any place. In fact, isn’t that what they advertise? Walk-in abortions? Free smoothie with every 10th abortion? Give me a freaking break. PP is sometimes the ONLY place for low-income women to get reproductive health care, including gyn exams and breast cancer screening. Some PPs offer free mammograms when no other place does. PP has been providing low-cost woman’s health care for decades, and the Komen grants were specifically for breast cancer screenings. Komen also decided to defund PP based on the ‘criteria’ that they wouldn’t fund any organization that was under investigation, while continuing to provide funding to other orgs that are also under either state or federal investigation (including Penn State). Saying Komen supports abortion is as ludicrous as saying Komen supports pedophilia because they give money to Penn State.
Kyle commented on Feb 03 12 at 12:31 pmDon’t worry, CW-
I will increase my donations in order to show my support of this decision. Yours won’t be missed. It makes me laugh at the hypocrisy of those that use the term ‘pro-life’ and will happily condone the deaths of actual people (like cancer patients, convicts and doctors) while shaming those women that make incredibly difficult decisions to end a pregnancy. If you understood the realities of people in crisis and saw first-hand the result of your oblivious opinions you wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. Instead, you go home to your happy, middle-class life of privilege without so much as a thought to those that you oppress.
I have no patience for you hypocrites. Kudos to SGK for not caving to the uneducated, church brainwashed, masses that seem to congregate on Babble when not homeschooling their children.
Linda, T.O.O. commented on Feb 03 12 at 12:42 pm“Strollerderby even says this herself at the end.” “Strollerderby needs to take a few writing classes and do some fact checking before you allow her to post on your site again.” This is the most unintentionally funny thing I’ve ever seen written here. lol. I wonder if Komen will ever recover from this PR nightmare of their own creation. Since the Komen money only ever went towards breast cancer screenings for poor women, it’s hard to understand why anyone would be against that, but whatever. I stopped expecting the right wing to act with any sort of logic at all ages ago.
goddess commented on Feb 03 12 at 12:52 pmKomen has only earned my distrust, and I too, will direct the funds I have given them to Planned Parenthood instead. I won’t waste dollars on an ambiguous, closet anti-choice organization. Just goes to show how some people cannot just govern their own lives and bodies but must stick their noses into every uterus in the country.
Debbie commented on Feb 03 12 at 12:52 pmI wonder if Komen will recover from this decision. Millions of Americans didn’t know they supported Planned Parenthood. Now they do, so Komen will lose donation from those who don’t want to donate to Planned Parenthood indirectly.
And millions of Americans didn’t know that Komen’s CEO was an active Republican. They now suspect that Komen is politically motivated and anti-choice/pro-life. In an election year and a polarized nation, that will impact donations as well.
Planned Parenthood, on the other hand, is a huge winner. They’ll retain the $600k in grants from Komen and will keep all of the additional donations received as a result of this publicity (Mayor Bloomberg alone gave $250k…and I read they received another $400k in donations). Planned Parenthood also has demonstrated its political strength. They were able to get one of the largest and most respected charities to reverse its decision…and they were able to generate an enormous amount of negative press for Komen and positive press for Planned Parenthood.
This makes a fascinating case study, and I’m sure it will be included in many MPA and MBA programs in the future.
I am personally sadden by so many mean-spirited comments on Babble. For example, calling other readers “uneducated, church brainwashed masses that seem to congregate on Babble when not homeschooling their children” is just mean. Can’t we all show each other a bit more respect even if we disagree?
goddess commented on Feb 03 12 at 12:58 pmWhen those who would seek to pass laws governing my health care choices stop doing so and respect my ability to govern my OWN body, health and life, they will be accorded the same respect.
bunnytwenty commented on Feb 03 12 at 1:04 pmprotest works! yay!
Janet commented on Feb 03 12 at 1:35 pmPlanned Parenthood is under investigation for Medicaid Fraud and for covering up incest and child rape. When they are convicted, then they will no longer be eligible for the grant from SGK. If Planned Parenthood actually did breast screenings or mammograms then it would be a shame, since they do not, the money will be better spent on an organization that helps prevent, screen and treat breast cancer.
Whatevs commented on Feb 03 12 at 2:23 pmSGK also stopped funding 12 million in research to organizations/universities, not because the programs themselves were doing embryonic stem cell research, but because someone SOMEWHERE ELSE in the university or organization was either doing or was merely open to doing stem cell research. Yeah. Methinks this “charity” has a lot more to do with making money painting every damn thing a Pepto Bismol shade of pink and kowtowing to right-wing crazies, and a lot less to do with actually funding breast cancer research or treating breast cancer.
CW commented on Feb 03 12 at 4:18 pmGiven that abortion (like natural miscarriage) increases the risk of the woman subsequently developing breast cancer, Planned Parenthood probably causes more women to lose their lives to breast cancer than their screenings save.
CDeFnorthernVermont commented on Feb 03 12 at 4:37 pmNo, that genie will not ever fit back into the pink water bottle.
The net effect here is that SGK has irreversably divided its donor population in two, along the issue of control: yes, I control my own (host) body /vs./ no, you are not allowed to control the fate of a (parasitic) fetus.
Two personal observations:
1. The term “abortion lobby” has come up. This is not a K Street big pocket response, it’s coming from many many individual women and men.2. Speaking of men, if they were the childbearers, the right of choice would have been settled long ago, to the positive.
This is another tough one.
daria commented on Feb 03 12 at 4:42 pmWould love to see those stats, CW, since that link is completely false. Also, you do realize that making abortions more difficult to obtain doesn’t prevent them, it just kills women through unsafe abortions. PP doesn’t recruit women for abortion, just provides services to those requesting them, safely. Don’t want women to have abortions? Then provide them with birth control and reproductive education — just like PP does.
Tammy commented on Feb 03 12 at 4:45 pmPlanned Parenthood is an organization that is about the work of eugenics – destroying the ‘inferior’ of the human race. Any propaganda that they are for women’s health and care for the poor is just that – a lie. It is a very popular concept that has permeated the medical industry as a whole.
The Koman Foundation, if it is to be perceived as a legitimate and genuinely benign organization interested in the health of women must break all ties with this perverse organization.
Linda, T.O.O. commented on Feb 03 12 at 5:35 pm“Is abortion linked to breast cancer risk?
A few retrospective (case-control) studies reported in the mid-1990s suggested that induced abortion (the deliberate ending of a pregnancy) was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. However, these studies had important design limitations that could have affected the results. A key limitation was their reliance on self-reporting of medical history information by the study participants, which can introduce bias. Prospective studies, which are more rigorous in design and unaffected by such bias, have consistently shown no association between induced abortion and breast cancer risk (18–23). Moreover, in 2009, the Committee on Gynecologic Practice of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists concluded that “more rigorous recent studies demonstrate no causal relationship between induced abortion and a subsequent increase in breast cancer risk” (24). Major findings from these recent studies include the following:
Women who have had an induced abortion have the same risk of breast cancer as other women.Women who have had a spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) have the same risk of breast cancer as other women.
Cancers other than breast cancer also appear to be unrelated to a history of induced or spontaneous abortion.”
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/reproductive-history
Linda, T.O.O. commented on Feb 03 12 at 5:37 pm“Any propaganda that they are for women’s health and care for the poor is just that – a lie.” It cracks me up that you know the word “propaganda”, yet are completely unable to identify it.
daria commented on Feb 03 12 at 6:31 pmHmmm, until Nixon’s second term, Republicans were very supportive of PP and abortion rights. Who exactly is spreading propaganda, Tammy?
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