Komen Foundation caves in to the nutcase right. Mistake.

[rubato]

They cut funding to Planned Parenthood to pay for breast screenings and pissed off so many people that Planned Parenthood made up the whole loss in 1 day. And alienated 2 out of 3 potential Komen supporters:

(full disclosure: we are regular contributors to both Planned Parenthood Mar Monte and the national organisation.)
____________________________________
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... -LYSOG.DTL


Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Planned Parenthood Federation of America may have already replaced the $680,000 in funding it lost from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation for its breast-cancer prevention programs, the group said today.

Riding a wave of Internet appeals, Planned Parenthood received pledges of $400,000 from 6,000 donors as of 2 p.m. yesterday, said Tait Sye, a spokesman. Three large donors also surfaced: The Amy and Lee Fikes' Foundation, run by the head of closely-held Bonanza Oil Co. in Dallas, pledged $250,000; New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he'll match the next $250,000 given and Credo, a mobile-phone company, promised $200,000.

The decision by the Dallas-based Komen foundation has spurred a tsunami of online comment and petitions that added political fuel to the dispute and involved corporate funders for Komen, including Yoplait, the French yogurt maker, among others.

"This has been a contentious issue," said Chief Executive Officer Nancy Brinker of Komen in a conference call.

Her organization initiated a review of granting criteria in 2010, and included a clause denying money to any organization under investigation with a unanimous vote of Komen's board, she said. Brinker denied that the funding drop came about because Planned Parenthood provides abortions.

The foundation has cited an investigation by Representative Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, into whether Planned Parenthood is illegally using government money for abortions as the reason it withdrew the funding.

Questions Asked

Some other grantees "probably do" provide abortions, Brinker said. "We ask a lot of questions" of grantees, "but that's not one of them." Funding for Planned Parenthood is less than 1 percent of the $93 million in community health grants that Komen provides, she said.

Three Planned Parenthoods in Northern Colorado, Waco, Texas, and Orange County, California will continue to get funding because they're the only providers in their area, Brinker said. Another 16 have been cut off, she said.

An emergency fund created by Planned Parenthood yesterday will help local Planned Parenthood health centers continue offering breast-cancer screenings, education and mammogram referrals in rural and underserved communities, the New York- based group said in a statement yesterday.

Most online comments about the Komen Foundation's decision were downbeat, according to NetBase Solutions Inc., a Mountain View, California-based company whose software reads and interprets 50,000 sentences a minute from billions of social media sources.

Negative Comments

Two-thirds of more than 3,600 sentiments expressed online about the split were negative, with people calling it "outrageous," and saying it did "irreparable harm" to the organization, NetBase said.

A posting on Facebook, a social media website, touting Yoplait's connection with the Komen-sponsored Race for the Cure drew some angry responses from users upset with the decision. Greg Zimprich, a spokesman, said in an e-mailed response to questions that the company has "a long history of supporting women in the fight against breast cancer" and wasn't involved in Komen's decision on the grant.

About 250,000 people have signed a petition on the website MoveOn.org, a political supporter of President Barack Obama, calling on Komen to reverse its decision, Sarah Lane, a spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. MoveOn is planning other efforts to pressure Komen to restore funding, she said, declining to provide further details. San Francisco-based Credo, Planned Parenthood's largest corporate funder, also has a petition.

Thankskomen.com

Those petitions were countered by groups such as thankskomen.com, which said it opposed Planned Parenthood, invited people to give their personal information and have the option of being kept informed about "pro-life developments."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... z1lKC6wUyY
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yrs,
rubato

[dgs49]

What a sad state of affairs it is when people and organizations are considered misogynistic when they refuse to pay for killing unborn babies.

You can provide health screenings, medical support, social services, hospice care, and whatever else you care to name, but if your organization draws the line at abortion, you are "hateful" to women.

My wife used to send the Komen organization a check four or five times a year, but stopped when she read some of their literature touting their support for the euphemistically-named "reproductive services."

Cancer screenings and treatment, Si.

Abortion, No.

[Guinevere]

COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT!!!

THREE PRECENT of PP funds go towards abortion services. They are mainly a provider of last resort for uninsured women who need basic health care, and yes, basic contraceptives. You know, those things women use so they *don't* get pregnant and have (1) abortions, or (2) children and families who become reliant on government services. Komen used to give PP $600K annually - which was used EXLUSIVELY for 170,000 breast exams, and 6,400 mammograms (or referrals for mammograms which PP then funded).

The new Komen "policy" was established solely to have a reason for removing PP as one of their partners. PP is the ONLY partner they have removed.

As a long time supporter of SGKF, someone who has participated in various Races for the Cure since their inception, and their 3-day walk, and supported other participants, and was just about to sign up for the 3-day again this year, I am FURIOUS.

ETA: I am also concerned about throwing out the baby with the bathwater. SGKF is the largest provider of funding for breast cancer screening, treatment, and research in the world. This bad bad decision is going to cut off alot of their support, and they are hurting the very women they claim to support. Hopefully, the public outcry will help them re-think this decision. In the meantime, various board members have resigned, and all sorts of folks have pledged to stop sending SGKF funds -- but will direct them to PP directly. In the end, that is going to hurt women with breast cancer, or women at risk for breast cancer, and having fought that fight before with friends and family, and fighting it again with a newly diagnosed friend, it makes me incredibly sad and incredibly angry.

[BoSoxGal]

Komen just announced they're restoring the funding.

[Scooter]

Brinker had provided at least three different versions of why they had cut PP off. I don't think they anticipated the shitstorm they set off, including the fact that a $7.5 million grant they make to Penn State was at risk under the "policy" because it is being investigated under the Clery Act.

[dales]

Take a deep breath and exhale slowly through the mouth....



Their decision has been reversed.

[Liberty1]

The Komen Foundation is a private organization. Planned Parenthood is ostensibly a private organization as well, but one with the highest of public profiles, a maximally polarizing mission, and a conduit of taxpayer dollars. If either of the two should be wary of politicizing its decision-making process, it should be PP, no? And yet Komen is getting hammered for a practical organizational decision (for the zillionth time: PP does not provide mammography) while pro-choice auxiliaries are gleefully fomenting the rage.


Look, the beauty of free speech is that, if you’re inclined to do so, you can write a check to PP in an act of solidarity, or write a check to Komen as an expression of moral approval. That’s all fine. But there’s something quite a bit different, something creepy and not a little despicable, about the Planned Parenthood set’s besmirching Komen’s good name across a thousand platforms for having the audacity to stop giving them free money. And I don’t care why that decision was made, frankly. If it was made because PP is controversial and under congressional “investigation,” that’s a perfectly valid reason for an organization to disentangle itself. If it was made because they judged that money would have a greater impact if directed toward the provision of actual mammograms and not just clinical screenings, that makes sense. And if the decision was made because a controlling faction at Komen feels a moral disgust toward the dismemberment of viable fetuses and would rather not subsidize an outfit that does that 300,000 times a year — well that’s fine, too. None of those rationales justifies the outrageous non-sequiturs about how Komen “hates poor women.”

Imagine I volunteered to run a cub scout troop, and for years, when the annual soapbox derby came near, I knew I could count on Joe’s Deli as good for a hundred dollar donation. If one year Old Man Joe decided he didn’t want to donate any more — because he didn’t like the design of our racer, or because he thought his hundred bucks was better spent on a little league team, or because he disapproved of the scouts’ stance on gays — what on earth would justify me going on public access TV to grill Old Man Joe on why he hates kids? What would justify me hacking the Joe’s Deli web site or maliciously editing Old Man Joe’s Wikipedia page? What would justify me goading a handful of my city councilman into standing up at the next town meeting and publicly calling on Old Man Joe to reinstate his donation?

Nothing. Nothing would justify that. Nothing at all.

[Scooter]

Amazing how quickly the wagons have circled to cover Komen's ineptness.

[BoSoxGal]

How despicable that provision of basic reproductive healthcare, including birth control, to uninsured women (which is 97% of what PP does) is considered 'maximally polarizing'.

You haven't come such a long way, baby.

[dgs49]

This whole thread has become obsolete, as of a couple hours ago.

[Crackpot]

It went over better than new Coke

[rubato]

Take a deep breath and exhale slowly through the mouth....



Their decision has been reversed.

A lot of women have learned that the SGK Foundation can never be trusted again.

And those of us who support Planned Parenthood have been heartened by the huge outpouring of support.

We win, the women-haters lose.


yrs,
rubato

[dales]

Perhaps, there are other charaties to support.

[rubato]

Perhaps, there are other charaties to support.

And we support several of them.

But if you want lower crime rates and less poverty in the future, providing reproductive services to women is necessary.


yrs,
rubato

[loCAtek]

Time for me to provide my promised donation.