Life Links 2-2-12
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack makes a good point:
[W]hy does Planned Parenthood feel entitled to a private charity’s donations, especially considering the fact that Planned Parenthood’s president falsely claims on national television that the group provides mammograms? Isn’t Komen free to give its money to organizations that do more than provide mammogram “referrals” and breast cancer screenings?
Here is Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards caught stretching the truth about mammograms…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq0kBkUZbvQ[/youtube]
- Who says pro-life grassroots boycott efforts don’t work? Not people talking to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg:
[Former Komen senior communications adviser John] Hammarley explained 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.” …
He called the controversy over Planned Parenthood funding “a burr in the saddle of Komen, but it withstood the issue for years and years.”
- Mollie Hemingway notes how the media finally noticed the connection between Planned Parenthood and Komen after Komen cut off grants:
Turn itself into? Turn itself into? Help me out here. Funding a group that terminates 330,000 pregnancies a year is not controversial but deciding not to fund that same group is? In what world? It’s important to note that Planned Parenthood doesn’t just do abortions. But many of the other things they do — teaching kids about sex through a text-chat program, receiving hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, spending high sums on fundraising and public policy to fight political opponents, selling or otherwise distributing contraception and abortifacients — are also controversial. Giving a woman a slip of paper to get a mammogram somewhere else is not controversial, unless by the standard that it’s not sufficient work for scarce breast cancer dollars, but you have to put the controversy in context.
[Photo via salon.com]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Congratulations. You killed Komen. Big money is being pulled away from Komen.
Planned Parenthood is receiving all kinds of offers today, like Michael Bloomberg’s $250,000.
Like I said, you’re marginalizing yourselves and the editorials today prove it.
mp,
If so many people want to donate to PP, its their money to do with as they please. PP shouldn’t need tax dollars then, right? That this will “kill” Komen is a bit of a stretch. Why would Komen’s donors and supporters suddenly roll over and play dead? According to the video, it doesn’t look like PP even offers mammograms as part of its “services” so what’s the issue here anyway?
That video was made months ago. I’m talking about what’s happening right now.
Editorial writers–all over the country–are calling out “pro-life” for using Komen as a tool to get at Planned Parenthood.
The Komen brand is being incinerated in the press as I write this and Planned Parenthood is receiving huge donation offers.
Congratulations, Jill. You and your buds really did it this time.
mp,
Give us a break. So let these folks donate to PP. It’ll save us taxpayers millions.
Editorial writers? Puhleeze. I have yet to read one. Do you think PP might give some of the donations they receive to Komen, being they are so concerned about breast cancer?.
Maybe with all these donations PP can finally afford to offer mammogram services.
There’s a silver lining in every dark cloud mp.
San Jose Mercury-News
The Susan G. Komen Foundation revealed its true colors Tuesday, and there wasn’t a hint of its trademark pink in sight. Komen put red-state, right-wing politics above low-income women’s health, pure and simple, with its decision to stop giving money to Planned Parenthood to pay for breast cancer screenings.
It could be the most cowardly act by a health foundation in U.S. history.
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_19879960
@mp: You know what? No. Komen will live. In fact, they’ll probably be much better off. They must have known that when this came out–as it inevitably would–the PP supporters would all morph into ZALGO zombies ready to sing the song that ends the world and so on. And then, it’s going to blow over. Not only because the public at large does not love PP so much that they will withhold support from the best-known breast-cancer fundraising group out there, but also because PP is going to be forced to move on and deal with other things. They don’t have the legs to keep up a sustained attack. LiveAction isn’t going away. AUL isn’t going away. The pro-life movement isn’t going away. But all this? All this sturm and drang? That is going away. It’s headlines today and forgotten tomorrow. And when this October rolls around, most people are still going to buy Komen products. Whether they’re associated with PP or not.
Alice: They must have known that when this came out….
Alice, I don’t think they knew what was going to happen.
San Jose Mercury News. First I ever heard of it.
Didn’t you see the video mp? PPs that don’t offer mammograms. What happens to poor women in those communities?
Reuters
“The scurrilous accusations being hurled at this organization are profoundly hurtful to so many of us,” said Brinker, who founded the group following her sister’s death in 1980 of breast cancer. “More importantly, they are a dangerous distraction from the work that still remains to be done in ridding the world of breast cancer.”
But philanthropy experts said it will be difficult for Komen to convince people it wasn’t playing politics.
“There’s a long-term weakening of the Susan G. Komen brand from this decision,” said Melissa Berman, chief executive of nonprofit Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers, which counsels wealthy donors who give more $200 million a year.
“We would see donors reluctant to be involved with a charity whose decision-making gets influenced by short-term pressures and politics because you would always wonder who is really in charge.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/03/us-usa-healthcare-komen-idUSTRE8111WA20120203
Christian Science Monitor
Money pours into Planned Parenthood. Was Susan G. Komen misunderstood?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2012/0202/Money-pours-into-Planned-Parenthood.-Was-Susan-G.-Komen-misunderstood
Dallas Morning News
Komen for the Cure’s new fashion statement: the pink burqa
You would have thought an outfit as big, as influential, as respected-bordering-on-sanctified as Dallas-based Susan G. Komen for the Cure would be beyond the reach of one-issue hardball politics.
You’d have thought it, and you would have been wrong.
The nation’s largest breast-cancer charity voluntarily donned the theocratic burqa of anti-abortion ideology Tuesday with its decision to defund Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest provider of reproductive health services.
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/columnists/jacquielynn-floyd/20120201-komen-for-the-cures-new-fashion-statement-the-pink-burqa1.ece
mp,
Please address my question. According to the video, any number of PP affiliates do not offer mammograms. What do “philanthropy experts” say about this?
Like I said, if so many people are now donating to PP, what’s the problem? They should have plenty of money for the mammograms they don’t perform and will be saving the taxpayers millions.
According to the video, it doesn’t look like PP even offers mammograms as part of its “services” so what’s the issue here anyway?
________________________________________________________
The issue is that Komen, which was previously seen as a non-political, non-partisan organization, was used to attack Planned Parenthood.
Komen is now seen a political organization and they will pay dearly for it.
San Jose Mercury News. First I ever heard of it.
Well, Mary, a lot of people in California have.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose_Mercury_News
“The official word from Komen on discontinuing the funding Planned Parenthood is because it has adopted new guidelines that bar it from funding organizations under congressional investigation. An investigation into Planned Parenthood’s funding was announced in the fall under the purview of Rep. Cliff Stearns (yes, the the same Cliff Stearns who proposed that 9/11 responders be screened to ensure they are not terrorists before collecting any funds –H/T PhillyJourno). But is the investigation an unfortunate inconvenience Komen just can’t get around or an all-too-convenient excuse?
It should come as no surprise that Komen has been under pressure from pro-lifers not to fund Planned Parenthood. And by now it’s known that this past April the organization recruited a new Senior Vice President for Public Policy, Karen Handel, who advocated for the group’s defunding in her failed run for Georgia governor in 2010.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/02/01/susan-g-komen-pink-slips-planned-parenthood-who-what-and-why/
“According to the video, any number of PP affiliates do not offer mammograms”
As anyone who has been to the doctor lately can tell you, any general practitioner does not offer mammograms, xrays, or any other radiation-based treatment in their offices. Those things are done offsite at independent labs. I had to go for xrays on my leg two months ago after getting a REFERRAL to have it done from my general practitioner. The way PP goes about treating breast health is the same as any other general practitioner office or gynecology office.
mp,
Oh yes, California, run by an aging hippie and deeply in debt, some communities with decreased fire and police protection. I’m sure their biggest concern is PP not getting funding from Komen.
Oh, so the issue isn’t whether or not PP in fact does mammograms or provides any such service to low income women. Why then mp should Komen have ever given PP one dime?
Also with all these donations now coming in to PP, which of course will be used to fund non-existent mammograms, there isn’t really a problem, is there?
“The issue is that Komen, which was previously seen as a non-political, non-partisan organization, was used to attack Planned Parenthood.”
That’s more hyperbole than anything, but is anyone really all that surprised?
“Komen is now seen a political organization and they will pay dearly for it.”
I doubt they will “pay”. Last I saw, their donations went up by about 100%. Anyway, let’s play a little game. For fun, let’s assume that Komen does “pay”. Less money to them means fewer grants they give out and less money allocated to cancer research. Fewer grants given and less money allocated to cancer research means more women suffer. But that’s okay because– you know– Komen must “pay”. Makes sense.
(Who says pro-choicers really care about women’s health?)
law,
If you looked at the video, you will find any number of PP affiliates did not offer mammograms. Even if they do mammograms, they must then refer the woman to a physician for follow up care. Who reads the mammograms? Certainly not the PP technicians who apparently don’t perform them. So, it stands to reason that a woman first have a physician who refers her for a mammogram and then does the follow up.
The media is doing its best to cover this as a negative to Komen–especially when they are showing a woman getting a mammogram and MAKING THE IMPLICATION that poor woman will not be able to get one now, at all, from anyone. 1)PP does not provide this service anywhere in the country, 2) If you complete an Komen application for the uninsured or underinsured you will be able to get a mammogram at your local hospital with this individual grant. 3) Komen’s own policy is to discontinue funding for any organization that is under investigation. PP cannot account–and does not feel compelled to account with Mr Obama’s blessing–for the billions of taxpayer’s dollars they have received. Serves them right for being so arrogant! It’s our money too!
When will pp ever get ‘dry behind the ears?
This ‘dead babie r us’ mob has been sucking at the public teat for more than 40 years.
I am a proponent of breast feeding, but even the le leche league would be ashamed of these arrested adolecents.
It’s too bad Uncle Sam hasn’t developed breast cancer and undergone a mastectomy.
Then the ‘I am whoa-man see me grow’ gals would have to stand on their own four feet and and go ‘toe to toe’ with big dogs for their sustenance.
“This is quintessential feminine confusion,” Sandy Rios said. “This is the part of my gender I’m ashamed of. The emotional, the vitriolic, the foolishness of it was displayed in the criticisms of Susan G. Komen.” There is a term for these kind of self hating women: auto-misogynists.
I have a co-workier who went to a Halloween party dressed as a mammography machine. He had a large box with two holes in it draped offer his shoulders and a sign advertising free breast exams. This is about all a woman have been offerred at pp shops.