Komen for the Cure Cutting Ties With Planned Parenthood

The big news of the past 3 days has been that Susan G Komen race for the Cure has finally decided to cut its ties with Planned Parenthood. On 2 February Komen CEO Nancy Brinker & President Elizabeth Thompson held a conference call where they gave as the reason for no longer giving money to Planned Parenthood. They are no longer giving money to organizations that don't actually do mammograms. The ties aren't completely cut yet Jill Stanek reports that 5 Komen affiliates have contractual agreements through 2012 with PP. The Denver SGK affiliate agreement with PP runs through March 2013.

The break is the result of a new policy. According to CEO Brinker “Our Board approved new grants standards to improve direct services to women. New grants standards strive for grants that provide direct services and outcomes. We have to put metrics, outcomes and measures to our grants so we can translate the science we’ve funded over 30 yrs. We will continue to provide services to vulnerable populations with care, treatment and screening."

"We’ve decided not to fund pass-through grants. What we would like is to have clinics where we can directly fund mammograms,” she added.

Brinker also said “It was nothing they were doing wrong,” that brought this change about. Sorry but I don't buy this.  I suspect that part of the reason for the new standards has everything to do with all the wrongdoing that has come out about Planned Parenthood over the last couple years. A lot of people haven't been happy with the Komen-PP tie. & it affected the donations. The fact that the donations for the 2 days since the news broke were up 100% shows that Koman knew the connection was doing more harm than good. People were voting with their money.

It is clear to me that Komen was OK with what PP stood for as long as it didn't hurt their donations. & some people at Komen wanted the ties to continue despite the pressure. & when they caved, at least 1 person quit.  A LifeNews story reports that according to The Atlantic, the decision caused an uproar inside Komen and “the organization’s top public health official, Mollie Williams, resigned in protest immediately following the Komen board’s decision to cut off Planned Parenthood.” Williams had served Komen as its managing director of community health programs. She was responsible for directing $93 million in annual grants.

One of the sources for the truth about her resignation was John Hammarley. Until recently he served as Komen's senior communications adviser & was charged with managing the public-relations aspects of Komen's Planned Parenthood grant.  He told the Atlantic that Williams believed she could not honorably serve in her position once Komen had caved to pressure from the anti-abortion right. "Mollie is one of the most highly respected and ethical people inside the organization, and she felt she couldn't continue under these conditions. The Komen board of directors are very politically savvy folks, and I think over time they thought if they gave in to the very aggressive propaganda machine of the anti-abortion groups, that the issue would go away. It seemed very shortsighted to me."

Hammarley went on to explain that the Planned Parenthood issue had vexed Komen for some time. "About a year ago, a small group of people got together inside the organization to talk about what the options were, what would be the ramifications of staying the course, or of telling our affiliates they can't fund Planned Parenthood, or something in between. As we looked at the ramifications of ceasing all funding, we felt it would be worse from a practical standpoint, from a public-relations standpoint, and from a mission standpoint. The mission standpoint is, 'How could we abandon our commitment to the screening work done by Planned Parenthood?'" He added that the Komen board made the decision despite the recommendation of the organization's professional staff to keep funding Planned Parenthood. (FYI, Hammarley was laid off last year but says he has no ill feelings towards Komen.)

Like I said, it is clear Komen's leadership was comfortable with PP & what they stood for. In fact a statement by Williams to The Atlantic confirms that. Part of it said "I respect the work of Planned Parenthood, including their lifesaving efforts to detect cancer in its earliest stages." In short she is admitting she was fine with anything PP did, even to the point of lying about PP's so-called lifesaving efforts. PP may have helped a few women detect cancer early, but 329,445 aborted unborn babies might differ with that evaluation.
& there is even more proof that this is about helping Planned Parernthood because they do abortions than helping women find breast cancer. An advisory board member of the New York Chapter has also resigned.  Dr. Kathy Plesser, a Manhattan radiologist told The Huffington Post. “Eliminating this funding will mean there’s no place for these women to go. Where are these women to go to have a mammography? Do they not deserve to have mammography?” Apparently she didn't get the memo telling her PP doesn't do mammograms. Also she seems to have ignored all the memos that show the other options these women she claims to be concerned about do have that really do provide mammograms. Methinks she doth protest too much.
Another huge abortion supporter who is unhappy that Komen is cutting ties with PP is VP Joe Biden. Given how in  bed with PP the Obama administration is, this should be no surprize. Biden has once again shown how poor of a Catholic he really is as well.  He supports Planned Parenthood, they are applauding Obama for his attack on the Catholic Church. Sorry Joey, but that doesn't exactly strike me as supporting your claims that you are a Catholic in any way shape or form.
The part that really gets me is how the message got out, his wife, Jill Biden, sent a message on Twitter today saying the couple would no longer support Komen. “When Joe heard about Susan G. Komen not funding Planned Parenthood anymore, Joe threw away his pink-ribbon Harvest Peach yogurt.” So, Joey had a hissie fit & threw a temper tantrum. Real mature. & she is so proud of him for doing it that she tweets about it. (For those of you that don't get the yogurt bit, Harvest Peach is a flavor of Yoplait brand yogurt. Yoplait has run promos with pink lids that people can turn in to Yoplait. For each lid it gets back, it donates money to Komen.)
Speaking of childish actions, hackers decided to hijack Komen's website.  For a while Thursday morning they found a way to totally redirect people from the real website to one with the message “Help us run over poor women on our way to the bank.” Gee, isn't that Planned Parenthood's modus operandi?

The break with PP actually took place in December when the new policy went into effect & they were notified. So why did the news just break now? Jill Stanek reports that "It was Planned Parenthood, not SGK, that tipped off the Associated Press with the news of the break, just as it was Planned Parenthood that tipped off the AP about Live Action’s sex trafficking sting, and Planned Parenthood that tipped off Washington Post’s Sarah Kliff about Congressman Cliff Stearns’ investigation."

Notice a pattern???? Clearly PP is trying to spin what is going on here as it has in the past. The problem is, PP doesn't have the support it used too. More & more people are waking up to the truth that PP isn't the saintly organization they paint themselves as. The investigations by Live Action as well as Operation Rescue & others have resulted in people seeing that PP is willing to look the other way when it comes to rape incest & sex trafficking when it comes to making money off of an abortion.

Jill Stanek reports that this was also a preemptive move for another reason as well, other groups are planning on following Komen's lead. As Jill puts it "See what will happen to you if you dare, is Planned Parenthood’s underlying warning." Once upon a time that may have worked, but not now.

Of course, PP hasn't passed up this opportunity to try & play the poor victim to milk their supporters for more money. Naturally they are also trying to paint this an an attack on poor women by those evil anti-aborts who "put their ideology over women’s health and lives." Even as the truth is coming out about how big a lie this is, PP is still clinging to it because they know there are a core of supporters out there who truly put their "culture of death" ideology over the lives & health of women, born & unborn.

PP isn't exactly the poor victim. Even with the decline in donations & funding they still have the Obama administration doing its best to poor more money in PP's bank account. the prime example these days is Sibelius' ruling about insurance covering birth control etc. & New York City Mayor has shown what he thinks about the minorities in his city by giving PP $250,000 of his own money to make up for the loss from Komen. While not the only abortion provider in NYC, PP has done its part to ensure that more blacks were aborted than born. & don't forget his support of efforts to shut down crisis pregnancy centers in NYC as well.

Komen has also taken another step guarenteed to PO the "culture of death" gang. They are no longer funding any embryonic stem cell research.  LifeNews reports that on "November 30, 2011, Komen quietly added a new statement to its web site stating that "it does not support embryonic stem cell research but supports the kinds that do not involve the destruction of human life." Now if only they would acknowledge the abortion-breast cancer link.
A sign that the culture at Komen is changing is who they have hired as their Senior Vice President of Public Policy, Karen Handel. In 2010, while Georgia Republican Secretary of State, she decided to run for governor to replace outgoing pro-life Governor Sonny Perdue, who was term limited, on a platform of defunding Planned Parenthood. Of course her hiring didn't sit well with PP.
That Komen is cutting its funding to PP IS good news. & another sign that the truth is getting out.

See also: An Open Letter to Susan G. Komen Founder, Nancy Brinker
Komen Right Because Planned Parenthood Doesn’t Help Women
Pro-Life Groups Celebrate Komen De-Funding Planned Parenthood
Others Should Follow Komen by De-Funding Planned Parenthood
Pro-aborts hack Komen website over cutting Planned Parenthood
Komen head: Planned Parenthood lost funding because they don’t do cancer screenings
Komen Foundation to continue funding some Planned Parenthood affiliates - for now
Komen donations soar after cutting ties with Planned Parenthood