Shame on Susan G. Komen

mini · February 7, 2012, 3:50pm

The 3% PP spends on abortion is extremely important for women’s health. I remember the days when hundreds and hundreds of women (good, Christian women) died in back-alley abortions, and I don’t want to go back there. Don’t trivialize that 3%, or shove it to the back of the bus. It is central to what PP is about, and I think that’s great.

I embrace PP’s mission - ALL of it. So do Catholics who (last data I can find) represent 31% of abortions, and so do Evangelicals/Born-Agains, who represent 18% of all abortions.

musicprnt · February 7, 2012, 3:52pm

momcat:

Yes, exactly. There are more then a few pro life people who also support contraception and sex ed and so forth, who realize the best way to prevent abortions is to make them unecessary, but the hard right types like Handel and the rest of them are also the anti sex brigade who believe things like sex ed is what causes kids to have sex (it doesn’t, studies of states that use ‘abstinence only’ and kids who are members of the purity movement and so forth, end up having sex, maybe delayed a bit, but they still do in pretty much the same numbers as kids who have birth control), they believe that teaching about birth control and condoms ‘promotes fornication’ (tells you what century they live in), and it is also quite frankly from a religious viewpoint where women are to blame is a man has sex with them, they are ‘eve’ and all that, and that if a woman gets pregnant, it is ‘the wages of sin’ and so forth.They aren’t going after PP on abortion, they are going after PP because the types like that are anti sex and are trying to turn back the clock to some mythic age that never existed, they really believe premarital sex and teen sex and such started in the 1960’s, which is ajoke (little hint to anyone who believes that…even in the ‘good ole days’ of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s, most people who married were not virgins gasp). They would be after PP even if they didn’t provide abortions, this is how the hard right operates.

suzy100 · February 7, 2012, 3:59pm

*For those who have not seen this viral video, please make sure you don’t have any food or drink in your mouth from about a minute and a half on… it is hilarious:

Watch Stephen Colbert’s Defense of Planned Parenthood

You’ll never be able to think of any Walgreens store in the same light again after watching this.*

I wish Colbert would run for office for real.

MD_Mom_1 · February 7, 2012, 4:01pm

Colbert? Too smart…not electable.

Kei-o-lei · February 7, 2012, 4:12pm

Godwin’s Law:

“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

hyeonjlee · February 7, 2012, 4:12pm

However, she (Handel) said the decision-making process began before she joined the organization last year, and the policy change was thoroughly vetted at every level within the organization and unanimously agreed to by the board at a November meeting.

The Board specifically discussed various issues, including the need to protect our mission by ensuring we were not distracted or negatively affected by any other organizations real or perceived challenges, Handel wrote to Komens CEO and founder Nancy Brinker.

In an interview, Handel acknowledged she played a role in Komens decision to defund Planned Parenthood, but also pushed back against allegations that she was the sole actor in the decision.

I clearly acknowledge [my role] in the process, but to suggest I had sole authority is just absurd, Handel told Fox News Tuesday afternoon. The policy was vetted at all appropriate levels.

what this says is, Brinker lied thorough and through after the initial decision was announced and she realized that she created a firestorm. The whole “new funding criteria” is a bogus rule trumped out to solely defund PP and give that political decision a veneer of a cover.

As much as I have a different political view on this whole thing, I would have at least respected Brinker if she decided to come out and say “We are doing this because of our XYZ beliefs, and we are standing by it”. Instead, she lied, lied, and LIED some more, and tried to weasel her way out.

Meanwhile, it’s amazing to me that the defunding decision was so thoroughly vetted and yet, nobody there ever thought through the whole issue and half way anticipated the firestorm. Their behavior after the firestorm should be written up as the worst PR and damage control tactic ever invented. They were incredibly naive and incompetent.

MomCat2 · February 7, 2012, 4:25pm

mini -I hope you were not thinking from my post that I was trivializing the 3% that PP spends on abortions - I agree 100% with everything you wrote in your most recent post.

Have you read this book?: [Amazon.com:</a> The Choices We Made: Twenty-Five Women and Men Speak Out About Abortion (9781568581880): Angela Bonavoglia, Gloria Steinem: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Choices-We-Made-Twenty-Five-Abortion/dp/1568581882]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Choices-We-Made-Twenty-Five-Abortion/dp/1568581882) I’m surprised and pleased to see that it’s still in print - it’s an important book. I read it years ago and so don’t remember details, but the accounts therein are very moving - including those from famous people - Whoopi Goldberg, Linda Ellerbee, Jill Clayburgh, Ursula K LeGuin, Grace Paley - and from “ordinary” women and men as well.
We sure don’t need to go back to the bad old days. One of the daughters of Geraldine (“Gerri”) Santoro is a member of another discussion board I read. Her story is so sad. The (graphic) photo of Geraldine lying dead on a hotel room floor has become a symbol for the horror of illegal abortion.

mini · February 7, 2012, 4:35pm

I didn’t. But anytime I see that 97% number thrown around, my blood boils. I would hope that only 3% of the time that people go to Planned Parenthood do they need referrals for abortion services (very, very few PPs actually provide abortions). But that 3% is very important to women’s lives, and is critical to PPs mission, and I don’t want to see it whitewashed. I remember college students from my time whose lives and health were ruined by back-alley abortionists, and the legalization of abortion was and remains one of the most important health advances made in my lifetime. I have two daughters - I would prefer they never need an abortion, but if they do, i want to make sure it is safe, legal, and available.

If you give money to PP, you are providing funds for women’s health - abortion referrals and all. If you don’t feel good about that, then don’t do it. I think people who do should embrace it proudly.

emilybee · February 7, 2012, 4:38pm

"However, she (Handel) said the decision-making process began before she joined the organization last year, and the policy change was thoroughly vetted at every level within the organization and unanimously agreed to by the board at a November meeting.

“The Board specifically discussed various issues, including the need to protect our mission by ensuring we were not distracted or negatively affected by any other organization’s real or perceived challenges,” Handel wrote to Komen’s CEO and founder Nancy Brinker.

In an interview, Handel acknowledged she played a role in Komen’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood, but also pushed back against allegations that she was the sole actor in the decision.

“I clearly acknowledge [my role] in the process, but to suggest I had sole authority is just absurd,” Handel told Fox News Tuesday afternoon. “The policy was vetted at all appropriate levels.”

While Brinker lied, Handel is lying about the role she played.

WASHINGTON – "Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the nation’s leading anti-breast-cancer charity, has insisted that its since-reversed decision to pull funding from Planned Parenthood arose from a routine change in criteria for grant eligibility that had nothing to do with abortion politics.

But a Komen insider told HuffPost on Sunday that Karen Handel, Komen’s staunchly anti-abortion vice president for public policy, was the main force behind the decision to defund Planned Parenthood and the attempt to make that decision look nonpolitical.

“Karen Handel was the prime instigator of this effort, and she herself personally came up with investigation criteria,” the source, who requested anonymity for professional reasons, told HuffPost. “She said, ‘If we just say it’s about investigations, we can defund Planned Parenthood and no one can blame us for being political.’”

Emails between Komen leadership on the day the Planned Parenthood decision was announced, which were reviewed by HuffPost under the condition they not be published, confirm the source’s description of Handel’s sole “authority” in crafting and implementing the Planned Parenthood policy.

Handel’s strategy to cut off Planned Parenthood involved drafting new guidelines that would prevent Komen from funding any organization that was under investigation by local, state or federal authorities. Since Planned Parenthood is currently the target of a congressional inquiry prompted by House Republicans into the way it uses government funds, the family planning provider would have been immediately disqualified from receiving new Komen grants."

[Karen</a> Handel, Susan G. Komen’s Anti-Abortion VP, Drove Decision To Defund Planned Parenthood](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>Karen Handel, Susan G. Komen's Anti-Abortion VP, Drove Decision To Defund Planned Parenthood | HuffPost Latest News)

hyeonjlee · February 7, 2012, 4:40pm

mini,

you said it all. 1000% agreed. thanks for articulating it so well.

I only have boys, but should any women they care about, friends, a lover, wife, whoever, need a an abortion, I hope they can get is safely and legally.

MD_Mom_1 · February 7, 2012, 4:42pm

I wonder which conservative’s political campaign will hire Handel?

Shame on Susan G. Komen

CONNECT WITH US