Susan G. Komen For the Cure withdraws funding from Planned Parenthood
By Kristin HuntJanuary 31st, 2012, 10:30 pmComments (25)
Well ladies, here's your the-world-is-full-of-insane-assholes news item of the day: Susan G. Komen For the Cure is cutting off its funding to Planned Parenthood. And the funding wasn't for something controversial like birth control or abortions. Nope, it was for breast cancer screenings.
The cancer charity claims the move is due to Planned Parenthood being under investigation by Congress, but Planned Parenthood rightly contends that the real reason lies with anti-abortion groups, who have been giving Komen grief for this affiliation. (Coincidentally, the congressional investigation was launched by Cliff Stearns, a conservative Republican who was egged on by a "report" from Americans United for Life.) Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, has responded thusly:
It was incredibly surprising. It wasn't even a conversation — it was an announcement... It's hard to understand how an organization with whom we share a mission of saving women's lives could have bowed to this kind of bullying. It's really hurtful.
According to Planned Parenthood, Komen provided $680,000 in breast cancer screenings and breast health services to at least 19 of its affiliates last year, and $580,000 the year before. The two organizations began their partnership in 2005, and Planned Parenthood says it performed nearly 170,000 of its four million breast exams over the past five years with Komen funding.
Luckily, Planned Parenthood has already recovered some of the lost funding through a $250,000 donation from the family foundation of Dallas oilman Lee Fikes and his wife Amy. (Can I please get a rousing rendition of "You're the Best Around" for the Fikes?) Richards says the group is intent on raising the rest of the missing money so that women in need can still receive breast screenings.
This should go without saying, but since Komen hasn't come out and said, "Just kidding! We're not actually dicks," someone needs to put it out there: this is pure and utter bullshit. I can't even begin to describe how disturbing it is that the people cheering this split would deny women life-saving screenings just to stick it to Planned Parenthood. Excuse me while I weep for humanity, and look into a new charity to affiliate with my debit card.
Commentarium (25 Comments)
Planned Parenthood is a strong voice for protecting women's health. On the other hand, if you're an unborn female baby, they'll kill you off.
If you're unborn, you're not a baby; you're a fetus or a blastocyst. It's like saying "unborn adult" or "unborn senior citizen" -- it's a meaningless combination of words.
We're not a perfect society and, for now, the rights of the mother trump the rights of a potential being that cannot sustain life on its own. Bummer, but that's the way it is.
I'm looking forward to a perfect society where law protects the potential life that swims around in my nutsack. I want Rick Santorum and his ilk to start dealing with the real issue: uncontrolled masturbation, killing billions of potential humans every second that God makes! Oh Onan! What crimes are committed following your wretched example!
Apparently the rights of the mother even trump a viable baby, to wit, third trimester abortions.
robert - if that line of reasoning makes you feel better, go for it but murder is murder.
@observer: Where do you get that from? Roe permits states to outlaw third-trimester abortions. Third-trimester fetuses are (usually) viable, and if there is some urgency to ending the pregnancy because of risk to the woman, the baby (usually) can be delivered alive.
And if your line of reasoning makes you feel better, go for it, but a tautology is a tautology.
Susan G. Komen For the Cure is a corrupt bully. If you have any doubts, try to use "for the cure" in your own charity and see what happens. Fuck you, Susan G. Komen, and your goddamn scam.
They spend a ton of money on lawyers to sue small charities with 'for the cure' in their name and then the charities can't afford to defend themselves.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/07/komen-foundation-charities-cure...
No kidding. I never would have given them a cent anyway; they don't even pursue research into environmental causes of cancer (probably because they don't want to piss off Ford and KFC, among others...). If you want to support breast cancer research that isn't bought and paid for by corporations, there are much more deserving organizations out there like Breast Cancer Action: https://bcaction.org/.
This is going to hurt Komen more than Planned Parenthood. People who care enough to contribute to women's health are more likely to be pro-choice.
Hahahahahhahahahahhahahahhahaha!
Oh wait, you meant that?
You indeed area doofus.
More wishful thinking on the part of robert. His reasoning is extraordinarily poor, making his assertion that he's a law professor laughable.
His reasoning is extraordinarily poor, making his assertion that he's a law professor probable. You meant probable.
BTW, record donations to Komen from women hating misogynists yesterday.
Well, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting. The backlash begins: https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/susan-g-komen-site-hacked-c... We'll see who's right about this. I predict SGK caves.
Planned Parenthood PREVENTS more abortions than any other organization in America, bar none.
"Anti-abortion groups" prevent approximately nothing - except rational discourse - and exist only to give meaning to the otherwise empty and failed lives of their members.
Komen is simply a corporate entity designed to produce positive PR.
Amen!
How Orwellian. Slavery is freedom! The group that performs more abortions actually *prevents* more abortions!
Hard to face facts are still facts, Observer. Planned Parenthood has for many years supplied women with education, birth control counseling, and birth control itself, all of which help women - young and old, well to do and impoverished - plan their parenthood (get it?) which, by preventing unwanted pregnancies, also prevents abortions. Many abortions. The fact that they also assist women - who , Christian fundies as well as "bad" girls, will all get less safe abortions anyway - through abortions, does not diminish the FACT that they prevent more abortions than all the screaming, moralistic, self righteous, and hugely self congratulatory "anti abortionists" in the country put together.
Call that names, hate it, struggle to discredit it; it remains so.
All the anti abortionists I have ever met are far more interested in feeling like they are making an "important" stand than in actually solving real problems.
Go be moral if you want: it means nothing.
If you fight against real solutions that make the problem worse instead of better you're a baby killer, aren't you?
I guess the hard to face fact is that Komen isn't interested in supporting PP. Preventing abortions while performing them isn't good enough. Sorry but facts are facts.
Being moral is the only thing that matters. The attitude of the public is inexorably moving toward opposition to abortion.
Name calling means nothing, does it?
Don't you wish abortionists would just fess up and tell it like it really is....a fetus is not a random bunch of cells say like cancer.....it is a human being that is killed in the womb and they are ok with that...
I wish women would recognize that their periods routinely destroy perfectly viable eggs that could become human beings if only they deigned getting impregnated. Right tessssssssssssssssss?
Very true, tesss. At the very least, the pro-abortion group should admit they're ok with murder.
I'm going to give to SGK for the first time, not because I'm glad they snubbed Planned Parenthood, but because I still appreciate their efforts to raise funds for breast cancer treatment. If people don't want to give, they don't have to, but parting ways with a highly stigmatized organization is smart fundraising.
I support SGK now and will support them more.
Now you say something