The Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure, the largest and
best-funded breast cancer advocacy group in the United States,
angered many pro-choice activists and progressives last week when it
announced it would end financial support to Planned Parenthood.
Planned
Parenthood is
a non-profit
organization providing reproductive
health and maternal and child
health services. Grants given to Planned Parenthood from the
Komen Foundation, nearly $700,000 in 2011, have paid for 170,000
clinical breast exams and 6,400 mammogram referrals for mostly
low-income women over the past five years. This funding is crucial as
Planned Parenthood provides screening, education and treatment
programs in many communities where poor, uninsured or under-insured
women receive these services.
It seems that once again serving the health needs of women and
children are taking a back seat to the politics of the rich and
well-connected.
Progressives and others rightfully blasted the decision by Komen,
which cited a “new policy” barring funding for any group under
investigation. Planned Parenthood is currently being investigated by
Rep. Cliff Stearns, a Florida
Republican, who is trying to determine whether the organization is
using federal funds for abortions. The prohibition on using federal
funds for abortion dates back to 1976, when the Hyde Amendment
assaulted poor women’s right to choose, just a few years after the
legalization of abortion in 1973.
Planned Parenthood has been repeatedly subjected to intense
scrutiny from anti-abortion lawmakers. However, no wrongdoing has
ever been uncovered in these investigations. There is little doubt
that the Komen Foundation buckled under pressure from anti-abortion
activists—a charge Komen founder Nancy Brinker has
denied.
Critics point out that Komen’s new rules for grant recipients were
created after the recent hiring of Senior Vice President for Public
Policy Karen Handel. Handel has since resigned in the wake of this
scandal.
Handel, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in Georgia in 2010,
stated during her campaign that she does “not support the mission
of Planned Parenthood” and pledged to eliminate funding for
breast and cervical cancer screenings provided by Planned Parenthood.
Not only did she run on a platform that called for the de-funding of
Planned Parenthood, she continued to slam the non-profit in the midst
of the controversy last week.
Furthermore, Komen founder Nancy Brinker, who herself earns
$500,000 a year, is a longtime GOP donor with strong Republican ties.
She served as ambassador to Hungary under George W.
Bush. The ambassadorship
was awarded as a thank-you gift for her fundraising. Nearly $700,000
in political donations from
her and her ex-husband, multi-millionaire restaurateur Norman
Brinker, went to the Republican Party. The decision to de-fund
Planned Parenthood was announced shortly after Komen unveiled a new
partnership with the policy-making arm of George W. Bush’s
presidential library.
Fortunately, this backward decision was reversed a few days later
when an outpouring of outrage and anti-Komen Foundation sentiment
flooded the Internet. In the aftermath of the firestorm surrounding
its controversial decision, the Komen Foundation reversed its
position and assured the public that it would continue to fund
Planned Parenthood and its future grant requests.
The controversy has shed light on the Komen Foundation and the
whole “cancer charity” industry. Under capitalism, the fight
against breast cancer has become associated with the Komen Foundation
and its ubiquitous pink commodities one can purchase “for the
cure.”
While it is a positive step that Komen has restored the funding so
that many low-income women will once again be able to get breast
cancer screening at Planned Parenthood, why are so many women
dependent on Planned Parenthood for this vital health service?
Compare this to socialist Cuba, which has developed a groundbreaking
cancer vaccine and where health care for all is a right.
The Komen announcement to cut funding to Planned Parenthood was
nothing more than a thinly veiled attack on women’s reproductive
rights, especially the right to choose an abortion, though Komen
funds given to Planned Parenthood would have no impact on Planned
Parenthood’s abortion services one way or the other.
Abortion, while still legal, is not covered by many health plans,
and abortion providers are often hard to find. The reversal of this
decision is a momentary victory for pro-choice advocates. Abortion,
like all health care, is a right. Women fought for and won this right
and we must continue to defend it.
