How Komen Became a Political Tool

Title:  How Komen Became a Tool

Author:   William Saletan

Publication: Slate.com

Original publication date: February 7, 2012

Karen Handel has resigned from the Komen foundation. Handel, a pro-lifer who was blamed by insiders for the foundation’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood, says the decision was driven by Komen’s need to avoid controversy, not by politics. But you can’t have one without the other. If you refuse to fund organizations embroiled in controversy, you invite their enemies to make them controversial. In so doing, you make yourself political.

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Nancy Brinker: The steely force in the Komen controversy

Title: The steely force in the Komen controversy

Author: Monica Hesse

Publication:  The Washington Post

Date: February 15, 2012

…For three decades, the relentless force of Nancy Brinker’s personality has been inextricably tied to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the behemoth she created in memory of her elder sister, who died of cancer at age 36. She has dedicated her life to it. She has pinned her ambitions on it…

Monday, amid the Planned Parenthood funding controversy that arose this month, the editor of industry publication the NonProfit Times called for Brinker’s resignation. Last week, a former board member of a Komen New York affiliate requested the same, illustrating the symbiosis between woman and mission. It’s not clear what role Brinker played in the initial choice to defund Planned Parenthood and the reversal of that decision. Komen board members, including Brinker’s son, have not returned calls for comment…

Brinker, 65, declined, through a publicist, to comment for this article. “Decline” is an odd verb to follow “Nancy Brinker.” In the past, the woman who turned her philanthropy into a household brand hasn’t seemed inclined to decline much of anything…

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Moving beyond pink ribbons

Title: Moving beyond pink ribbons

Author: Peggy Orenstein

Publication:  Los Angeles Times

Date: February 15, 2012

Over the last two weeks, as Susan G. Komen for the Cure revoked funding for Planned Parenthood, then reversed itself, I watched through the scrim of something that, while less newsworthy, was, to me, no less significant: the death of Rachel Cheetham Moro, the 42-year-old writer of the blog Cancer Culture Chronicles…

Rachel had metastatic cancer — the kind that spreads beyond the breast. And guess what? It turns out that despite the money flowing to breast cancer charities — particularly Komen — the death rate among those with metastatic disease has not budged in 25 years. What’s more, the actual number of women (and men) who die of breast cancer today — about 40,000 annually — is greater than it was in the 1980s. That’s right: More people die now than did three decades ago. True, the overall breast cancer death rates — as a percentage of those diagnosed — have dropped, but that’s in part because mammography is really, really good at finding and diagnosing, for instance, DCIS, which means ductal carcinoma in situ. DCIS is Stage 0 cancer, which will probably never become invasive…

And so, even as pink ribbons have proliferated, even as breast cancer has become polite dinner table conversation, the actual lived experience of women with advanced disease — women like Rachel Cheetham Moro — has been pushed to the margins…

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Abortion and birth control mobilize the masses

Title: Abortion and birth control mobilize the masses

Author: Sonia Verma

Publication:  The Globe and Mail (Canada)

Date: February 15, 2012

First, there was the uproar that followed a decision by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood. Then, U.S. President Barack Obama found himself fending off a fresh outcry over a new rule that would require religiously affiliated hospitals to provide free contraceptives…

The decision by the cancer charity to reverse an earlier decision to sever its funding to Planned Parenthood signals to some that the American people have had enough of the debate. Politico.com predicts the backlash will become the “textbook case on the political power of social media.” Far from settling the abortion debate, however, tools such as Twitter and Facebook appear poised to amplify it in other ways

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Support for charity tainted by partisan politics

Title: Support for charity tainted by partisan politics

Author: Letters to the Editor

Publication:  USA Today

Date: February 08, 2012

It is sad that Susan G. Komen for the Cure got itself involved in abortion politics. Abortion divides us pretty much right down the middle. Did the organization really not see this trouble coming “Komen reversal on Planned Parenthood doesn’t end controversy“?

In addition, the group’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood— reversed under pressure — seemed dishonest. If the group wanted to say, “We no longer support Planned Parenthood because it provides abortions,” then it should have come right out and said so. Instead, its leaders cited a new policy barring funding of groups “under investigation.” Planned Parenthood is under investigation because of pressure from abortion opponents, not because of suspicions of wrongdoing…

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A skirmish over health gets political; The Female Factor

Title: A skirmish over health gets political; The Female Factor

Author: Luisita Lopez Torregrosa

Publication:  The International Herald Tribune

Date: February 08, 2012

…The outcry that swept across the United States following a decision by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation to cut off financing for Planned Parenthood turned women against women…

It all began when news surfaced that Komen, a Dallas-based fund-raising giant that is the biggest and best-known breast cancer charity in the United States, had decided to end its financial support of Planned Parenthood, a provider of women’s health services including contraceptives, breast examinations and abortions…

The furor was so swift and so strong that The New York Times – sensing a fundamental battle in U.S. society – gave it pride of place on its front page…

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Komen charity official resigns

Title: Komen charity official resigns

Author: Liz Szabo

Publication:  USA TODAY

Date: February 08, 2012

… In her resignation letter, Karen Handel, senior vice president for public policy at Komen, the USA’s largest breast cancer charity, said there had been “gross mischaracterizations” of the group’s decision to halve funding for Planned Parenthood, a move Komen reversed Friday…

Given the enormous public outcry, and potential damage to its brand and fundraising, some say Komen had no choice but to restore ties to Planned Parenthood — and sever them with Handel. “Komen needs to do everything they can for damage control,” said Michal Ann Strahilevitz, a professor of marketing at Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

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Charity VP quits after abortion fund furor

Title: Charity VP quits after abortion fund furor

Author: David Morgan, Reuters

Publication:  National Post (Canada)

Date: February 08, 2012

… In her Tuesday resignation letter to Ms. Brinker, Ms. Handel acknowledged her role in developing the strategy but denied it was based on political ideology, saying: “Our decision was the best one for Komen’s future and the women we serve.”

Komen insiders say Ms. Handel spent months pushing the plan to shift the organization’s grant strategy, leading the board to decide to cut off funding for 17 of the 19 Planned Parenthood affiliates in December. Her departure stirred regret among anti-abortion activists who blamed the latest development on the news media and Planned Parenthood.

Abortion advocates said Ms. Handel’s departure appeared to be a short-term effort to staunch a public relations disaster and was unlikely to dispel lingering doubts about the organization, given Komen’s ties with other high-profile political conservatives.

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Defunding Planned Parenthood: Did you know it serves men, too?

Title: Defunding Planned Parenthood: Did you know it serves men, too?

Author: Karen Heller

Publication: The Philadelphia Inquirer

Publication Date: February 08, 2012

…The Susan G. Komen for the Cure vice president involved in yanking Planned Parenthood funding for breast exams resigned Tuesday after a punishing backlash for the breast-cancer behemoth and a boon to the nation’s leading provider of sexual and reproductive health care….

Planned Parenthood performs 770,000 Pap smears annually, and more than four million tests for STDs (for men, too!). Three of four clients visit clinics for services to prevent unintended pregnancies, which helps reduce the need for abortion…

Women’s bodies are battlefields, but we never seem to argue about men.

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