Susan G. Komen and the Planned Parenthood Jihad
Charles P. Pierce (The Politics Blog, Esquire)
With select comments
It is very possible that the women in this country who want to control their reproductive systems, to say nothing of their lives, are going to get fed up very soon with having their freedom to do just that get mucked with by Bible-banging pests, meddling congresscritters, gutless foundations, and the members of the Clan of the Red Beanie. I do not know what vengeance they will undertake, but I suspect it will be fierce.
The latest entrant in the parade of chickens is the Susan G. Komen For The Cure, the country’s leading charity dealing with breast cancer, and the organization behind all those pink ribbons you see everywhere, and a group formidable enough to get NFL players wearing pink shoes once a season. A group, then, with some considerable muscle. Which it, sadly, has declined to use on behalf of Planned Parenthood. Instead, it has pulled its funding from PP, spewing a considerable amount of bureaucratic ink to cover its cowardly retreat:
“While it is regrettable when changes in priorities and policies affect any of our grantees, such as a long-standing partner like Planned Parenthood, we must continue to evolve to best meet the needs of the women we serve and most fully advance our mission.”
Please tell me specifically how the Komen group has “evolved” in such a way that contributing money to Planned Parenthood no longer can “best meet the needs of the women” it serves, and how it no longer helps the Komen group “fully advance [its] mission.” I’m dying to know. I need a good laugh.
Of course, the real reason is a politically motivated audit undertaken as part of a general jihad against Planned Parenthood undertaken by Florida congresscritter Cliff Stearns, the chairman of an oversight subcommittee and a real freaking prize in his own right. Stearns is the guy who added to the Zadroga bill, which provided for federal relief to the first responders who worked on the pile at Ground Zero in New York, the ludicrous requirement that the names of all applicants for such relief first be checked against all terrorist watch-list. He also once attacked PBS because the South African version of Sesame Street introduced a character who was HIV-positive. Like I said, a real prize. Nevertheless, he was enough to scare off the Komen group. It also seems that the Komen group’s decision may have been influenced by a woman named Karen Handel, a wingnut anti-choicer who once ran for governor of Georgia, and who is now the group’s vice-president for public policy. I would almost guarantee that Handel’s hiring was one of those half-assed “common ground” initiatives popular among liberals, and among Democrats, who are tired of all the yelling about abortion and who believe, quite seriously, like children believe in the Easter Bunny, that there are reasonable people in the anti-choice community with whom they can (and should) deal.
This, of course, is all my arse. The anti-choice people want the power to reassert control over what the ladies do with their lady parts, because that is the way Jesus and their daddies intended it to be. Legally, it’s not about Roe. It’s about Griswold. It will not stop with abortion. It will not even stop with birth control. Good god, would you want your reproductive life to be circumscribed by the likes of Cliff Fking Stearns? The only common ground worth having is the common ground worth fighting for. This is not the way to do it.
ADDENDUM
Komen controversy: The pink ribbon’s ugly new image
By Alexandra Le Tellier / Opinions & Provocations, LA Times
By pulling funding from Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings — not to mention after Republican activist and abortion rights opponent Karen Handelcame on board as vice president of public policy — and couching the decision as new protocol, Komen’s turned into an org women won’t want to be associated with. Not all women, of course. But there will be a lot us who’ll not longer be able to look at the pink ribbon as simply “breast cancer awareness.” They’ll think: What self-respecting, abortion rights supporter who cares about women’s rights and women’s health would be caught wearing a pink ribbon now, much less buying any of the many products that display the pink insignia? With one decision, Komen turned the pink ribbon into an ugly and polarizing symbol.
Opinionators and senators are also lamenting Komen’s move. Here’s a roundup chronicling some of the critique.
Andrew Rosenthal of the New York Times writes: “[Komen] have not only made it harder for women to have abortions, but also to get birth control counseling, prenatal care, and now cancer screenings.”
Kevin Drum of Mother Jones writes: “The right’s recent jihad against Planned Parenthood is about as loathsome as anything I’ve ever seen come out of them. They simply don’t care anymore how many people they hurt or how much harm they do to anyone they disapprove of.”
Erin Gloria Ryan of Jezabel writes: “Komen’s brand is imploding and seriously alienating young women and politically progressive supporters who were drawn to the cause expressly because of their non-political approach to a non-political disease. But when a charity hires a woman like Handel, a woman who must always attach politics to a woman’s body, and allows her to project her political beliefs into her work, Komen ceases being a viable charity and starts being a self-righteous political organization for rich ladies who like hanging around with celebrities. It’s a social club, and the only thing it’s curing right now is people’s desire to raise any more money for them.”
Megan McArdle at the Atlantic writes: “In that environment, you can see why an organization that does not itself have a mission to support abortion access would want to pull back from funding Planned Parenthood, even for related services. Unfortunately, while they easily could have declined to fund PP without much backlash, de-funding them sends an extremely explicit message that is probably going to cost them significant public support. Which is a pity, because early detection and treatment of breast cancer is a mission that we should all be able to agree on.”
Senators Lautenberg, Murray, Mikulski, Boxer, Cantwell, Gillibrand, Menendez, Wyden, Blumenthal, Shaheen, Begich, Merkley, Tester, Akaka, Sanders, (Sherrod) Brown, Leahy, Baucus, Cardin, Feinstein, Franken, and Kerry write in a letter re-posted on the Washington Post:
More than 90 percent of the services provided by Planned Parenthood are primary and preventative including wellness exams and cancers screenings that save lives. Each year, Planned Parenthood health clinics provide 750,000 breast exams, 770,000 pap tests and nearly 4 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted diseases. Twenty percent of all women in the U.S. have visited a Planned Parenthood health center….
Komen funding for Planned Parenthood has provided nearly 170,000 clinical breast exams and resulted in 6,400 referrals for mammograms. In 2011 alone, grants from Komen provided Planned Parenthood with roughly $650,000 in funding for breast cancer prevention, screening, and education. According to a recent statement by Komen, “In some areas of the U.S., our affiliates have determined a Planned Parenthood clinic to be the best or only local place where women can receive breast health care.”
It would be tragic if any woman — let alone thousands of women — lost access to these potentially life-saving screenings because of a politically motivated attack.
Hear, hear.
–Alexandra Le Tellier
Photos: A breast cancer awareness ribbon. Credit: Los Angeles Times
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