Susan G Komen ends Planned Parenthood grants

[twitchy2.0]

The anti choice brigade aren't concerned with preventing abortion as much as they are with trying to prevent people from having sex for fun.

Sex, to them, must only be within the confines of a marriage with the primary emphasis being procreation. Sex outside marriage must be punished with STDs, pregnancy and slut shaming. it's about forcing people to suffer consequences. How dare people use birth control and get off scot free? It's what happens when people are raised to think of sex as dirty and to idolize the myth of purity.

[CornFlakegrl]

I hate that people only think of Planned Parenthood as a place to obtain an abortion. They provide a great service to young women, women without insurance, underprivileged women and even young men. Hell,if it weren't for them, I probably would have found myself faced with an unwanted pregnancy. You could get your exam every 6months for $35 dollars and packs of pills were $7 (and you could get 6 packs at a time). Hell, they had free condoms on the counter. Yes, they provide abortions, but they provide so much more.

I used Planned Parenthood whan I was young and uninsured, as well. A yearly exam, birth control and education on safe sex/ avoiding diseases all for under $50. It got me through my late teens/early 20s without pregnancy, without diseases, and getting the proper screenings done.

They provide a valuable service (understatement!) and this investigation and pull out by Komen is total bullshit.

[greysfang]

I guess I'll give my SGK money directly to PP this year.

[McJag]

I just faxed them a letter stating why I have canceled my team from the Walk For the Cure on Mother's Day in Philly. I am a breast cancer survivor and will not give them one more penny.

This is the key.
If you are outraged, fax or email to news@komen.org. We cannot stay silent and let the religious nuts rule. They are vocal. We must be more vocal.
You can also call to register anger to 877-465-6636. I just called and there are no busy signals. I expected more protest.
If they fear them, they must fear us far worse.
I beg each of you who love your fellow women, even if they are poor and have no voice, as much as you love your friends and family.
They obviously respond to money. Let them know first hand that no more of yours will go their way.
Please, do not just tell us about it, tell them first hand.
They rescinded the lawsuit thing after a public outcry. There is real hope here as long as we ALL act.
I am sick of women by the millions being vicimized by a bunch of old men and the religious nuts.

[greysfang]

Thanks jaggie, email has been sent. And since I'm their prime target for donations (40-something football mom), perhaps they will actually take notice.


ETA: Spoke too soon, that email got bounced back to me. It was a spelling error, its Komen, not koman.

[BBDSP]

I just sent one, too. They can go fuck themselves.

[VeraGemini]

I hate that people only think of Planned Parenthood as a place to obtain an abortion. They provide a great service to young women, women without insurance, underprivileged women and even young men. Hell,if it weren't for them, I probably would have found myself faced with an unwanted pregnancy. You could get your exam every 6months for $35 dollars and packs of pills were $7 (and you could get 6 packs at a time). Hell, they had free condoms on the counter. Yes, they provide abortions, but they provide so much more.

I used Planned Parenthood whan I was young and uninsured, as well. A yearly exam, birth control and education on safe sex/ avoiding diseases all for under $50. It got me through my late teens/early 20s without pregnancy, without diseases, and getting the proper screenings done.

They provide a valuable service (understatement!) and this investigation and pull out by Komen is total bullshit.

Me three. The clinic I went to provided gyno exams and basic physicals, plus referrals to other sliding scale clinics if the exams turned up something outside of PP's scope. (As well as the $7 a month BC pills and baskets of free condoms sitting around everywhere.) I would have had no health care at all in my late teens and early 20s if not for them. That clinic didn't even do abortions, although they would give you a referral to a place that did. And they'd just as readily hook you up with a place for low-cost prenatal care, if that was your choice.

[greysfang]

I'm sorely tempted to create a facebook just so I can comment on their wall.

[ManxMouse]

what the fuck were they thinking anyway, hiring an anti-choice politician as their VP?

I also gotta give PP a shout-out for all the AIDS tests they gave me back in the day, I really enjoyed the results!

[witchcurlgirl]

When Susan G. Komen for the Cure announced that they'd no longer be providing support to Planned Parenthood, many of its supporters smelled a right wing political agenda at work and took to the group's Facebook page to express their disappointment. After working tirelessly to delete negative comments from the page for several hours yesterday, the foundation has released a statement insisting that their decision to defund Planned Parenthood wasn't political, because they're not a political organization. Bullshit.

Komen's absolutely a political organization, and one of their most recent political moves was to hire as it's Vice President of Communications one Karen Handel, a Sarah Palin-endorsed, rabidly anti-choice failed gubernatorial candidate from Georgia. Even though the services that Komen grants support at Planned Parenthood are breast exams for poor women, Handel was vocally in favor of defunding the organization as a candidate. In addition, Komen's founder Nancy Brinker was a major donor to George W. Bush.


In spite of the fact that it's clear Komen for the Cure has prioritized fetuses over women, they're in damage control mode now, insisting in the face of evidence to the contrary that their actions are the result of high-minded concern for women and not mythology-based concern for ideology. An update from their Facebook page reads,

At Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the women we serve are our highest priority in everything we do. Last year, we invested $93 million in community health programs, which included 700,000 mammograms. Additionally, we began an initiative to further strengthen our grants program to be even more outcomes-driven and to allow for even greater investments in programs that directly serve women. We also implemented more stringent eligibility and performance criteria to support these strategies. While it is regrettable when changes in priorities and policies affect any of our grantees, such as a longstanding 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.


It is critical to underscore that the women we serve in communities remain our priority. We are working directly with Komen Affiliates to ensure there is no interruption or gaps in services for women who need breast health screening and services.


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.

Facebook users aren't buying it. In response to Komen's weak defense, one detractor wrote,

I will never donate another dime to nor participate in any SGK-related event after this cowardly decision to cave to right wing extremists. Shame on you for saying you support women's health when you pull a stunt like this.

Another wrote,

Nothing you say will change your decision, and now nothing I buy will support it either.

And another,

If your priority was really the women you serve and not to promote the anti-abortion agenda of those on your board, you wouldn't have stopped funding Planned Parenthood. PP saves women's lives on a regular basis and consistently promotes women's health, including catching breast cancer as early as possible. If this weren't about politics, these grants would never have come into question.

As of this post's writing, there have been over 1,000 comments on that Komen post alone, most of them negative, many of them promising to withdraw financial support, which, according to whoever wrote Komen's defense, is "hurting women."


With this maneuver, though, Komen for the Cure's anti-choice political agenda appears to have backfired. Planned Parenthood's been flooded with support and promises for contributions from supporters. The organization doesn't yet have figures on how much money flowed in from donors over the last 24 hours, but we'll keep you up to speed.


In the meantime, the family planning organization has launched a Breast Health Emergency Fund to assure that services for low income women aren't interrupted, because unlike Susan G Komen For the Cure, cancer doesn't care if you're poor or pro-choice.


Susan G. Komen Foundation Begins Backpedaling for the Cure

[greysfang]

I wonder how long it will take for them to reverse that decision. Jackasses. I'm really fired up about this.

[msdeb]

when my daughter turned 16 and had a boyfriend, i took her to PP to get info on Birth Control, get an exam, etc. she didn't have insurance, so this was wonderful. They loaded her up with condoms, bc pills, gave her info on the patch etc. They also gave her information on breast cancer since i'm a survivor. all for NOTHING.

i have a dumbshit bitch on my FB who is so anti-PP because and only because of their abortion status. I can't wait til she starts spewing about this. I'll delete her but i gotta kick her first.

[greysfang]

[Kathie_Moffett]

i fucking hate the susan g. komen foundation and i refuse to give them a penny. first it was bullying smaller breast cancer charities with lawsuits because they dared to use 'for the cure', like they owned those words. and now this? fuck them and i hope they choke on their pink ribbons.

THIS. I've never forgotten the petty legal bullying either (our money paid for the fucking lawyers too right?) and I have hated them for quite a while now. I hope this is the nail in their goddamn coffin. Perhaps the avalanche of free publicity and funding the whole debacle will give PP will inspire them to step up and really create a focused rival charity drive that will kick SGK's ass.

[BBDSP]

SGK is taking quite a beating on their Facebook wall. They will deeply regret this.