Until now Komen has worked closely and nobly with Planned Parenthood in helping to fund breast cancer screenings. However, it has been no secret that anti-abortion groups have been trying to destroy Planned Parenthood with their congressional surrogates, wrongly accusing PP of providing abortions with massive federal funds. If you follow the sequence of how this latest monstrous event came about, check this:
(1)In April 2011, Karen Handel, losing runoff Republican candidate for Georgia governor in 2010 (endorsed by Mitt Romney and Jan Brewer!) became senior vice president of Komen, continuing her pro-life campaign stance to rid Komen of Planned Parenthood
(2).In September, Rep. Cliff Stearns, the anti-abortion congressman from Ocala, Fla., announced that his subcommittee would investigate Planned Parenthood, demanding all of the foundation's records and those of all of its affiliates..
(3)Not long afterward, Komen rewrote its rules and denied funding to any organzation being "investigated" in Congress, while rewarding Stearns and the pro-lifers.
(4)Komen announces that it would have no further dealing with Planned Parenthood and even rejected any appeals for further discussion by the latter.
(5)Komen releases a formal statement, saying: "Grant-making decisions are not about politics - our priority is and always will be the women we serve. Making this issue political or leveraging it for fundraising purposes would be a disservice to women."
(6) Political and religious conservatives shouted "Yippee". Tony Perkins, the oft-quoted president of the Family Research Council, said it was about time that Planned Parenthood stop making a profit from abortions - which, of course, works for the Family Council's anti-abortion profit-making game.
(7)Not about politics? Make me laugh.
P.S. Planned Parenthood has received more than $400,000 in fresh contributions since Komen put a hit on it. You can add to that amount. I just did.
UPDATE: Now make that $650,000!
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8 comments:
In addition to boosting one's contributions to Planned Parenthood, one should consider not opening the mail solicitations from Komen. That, at least, is what I intend to do.
Yes, do open the Komen mail. Then send the response envelope back empty thereby sticking Komen with another postage fee.
Getting many credit card offers led me this way of upping the cost of the card company's marketing program.
This is a damn shame and the motive is clear as crystal regardless of the denials. As one whose wife is a breast cancer survivor, this is very disappointing.
This whole situation is horrific. I don't think it's fair that the right that wants to force women to have babies gets to be called "pro-life". We are pro-life too, we want women to have a good quality of life, health care, cancer screenings, and the right to decide what happens to their bodies!
I just found your blog and I am enjoying your posts!
Mother Jones pointed out that Komen just gave $7.5 million to Penn State for cancer research. Do I even have to point out the problem with that under Komen's new rules?
Mencken, maybe there was a hole in Komen's safety net
Just heard (as of 11:20 a.m., Feb. 3)that Komen has reversed the decision on Planned Parenthood. Now they need to get rid of Karen Handel.
So what exactly was the outrage here? Private charities have the right to make donations to whatever groups that they want. If Komen wanted to stop giving money to Planned Parenthood and instead send it to other organizations in the fight against cancer then what was the problem?
I think this reversal was a huge mistake. A lot of people who want to donate to cancer charities do NOT want their money going to funding abortion providers. They will now have to look elsewhere.
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