Cancer Group Backs Down on Cutting Off Planned Parenthood
By PAM BELLUCK
Published: February 3, 2012
The nation’s pre-eminent breast cancer advocacy group, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, apologized on Friday for its decision to cut most of its financing to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening and said it would again make Planned Parenthood eligible for those grants.
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“We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives,” Nancy G. Brinker, Komen’s chief executive, said in a statementposted on the organization’s Web site. The statement added, “We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants.”
The reversal comes in the face of an enormous furor over the decision and widespread complaints that the Komen foundation was tying breast cancer to the abortion issue. Comments on social networks like Twitter raged about the move, and donations, including a $250,000 matching grant from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City, poured into Planned Parenthood, allowing it to compensate for the $700,000 in Komen money that would have been cut.
Some Komen officials had said that the decision to halt financing, which was made in December and became public knowledge on Tuesday, was made because of an inquiry by a Republican congressman, Cliff Stearns of Florida, who is looking into whether Planned Parenthood has spent public money for abortions. A new rule was created by the foundation to bar grants to organizations under federal, state or local investigation, but a Komen board member said the only current grantee the rule would apply to was Planned Parenthood. Critics also objected to the fact that the foundation seemed to be giving an inquiry by a Republican congressman, which appeared to be prompted in part by opponents of abortion rights, as muchcredibility as a criminal or civil investigation by a government agency.
Ms. Brinker’s statement sought to change the impression that abortion politics prompted the decision.
“We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood,” the statement said. “They were not. Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.”
Cecile Richards, the head of Planned Parenthood, who had led a high-profile response to the Komen decision this week, responded immediately to the reversal.
“In recent weeks, the treasured relationship between the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation and Planned Parenthood has been challenged, and we are now heartened that we can continue to work in partnership toward our shared commitment to breast health for the most underserved women,” Ms. Richards said in a statement. “We are enormously grateful that the Komen foundation has clarified its grant-making criteria, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Komen partners, leaders and volunteers.”
Ms. Richards said that Planned Parenthood had raised nearly $3 million in donations for its breast cancer program this week from more than 10,000 people, including “a lot of folks who were small donors and who were former patients” and “a lot of folks that we had never heard from before.” She said the money would be devoted entirely to breast cancer services and would allow Planned Parenthood to significantly expand the breast cancer screenings and education it already provides.
Meanwhile, groups that oppose abortion rights and had swarmed to support Komen in recent days reacted angrily to the about-face.
“It’s mystifying how an organization can fully articulate sound reasons for eliminating a funding relationship, then turn around and capitulate on that reasoning within days,” Carrie Gordon Earll, the senior director of issue analysis for government and public policy at Focus on the Family, said in a statement. “This is an example of how difficult it has become for organizations to take a morally principled stand. It’s also evidence of the strong-arm tactics employed by pro-abortion allies of Planned Parenthood. Komen would do well to remember who is it partnering with — a group that will stop at nothing to keep its funding.”
John D. Raffaelli, a Komen board member, suggested in an interview Friday that foundation officials had been unprepared for the firestorm caused by their decision to halt grants to Planned Parenthood. He said that Komen’s supporters fall into broad groups, including those firmly committed to the anti-abortion movement and those committed to abortion rights.
“But we think there’s a third group that’s far bigger than the other two, and that’s people who are really committed to ending breast cancer,” Mr. Raffaelli said. “And it’s those people we were thinking of when we came up with this stupid idea. We let those people down, and that’s something we should never do.”
Mr. Raffaelli also said Komen now faces a seemingly intractable dilemma.
“Is it possible for a women’s health organization to stay out of the abortion issue and help all women?” he asked. “I don’t know the answer to that yet. What we were doing before was angering the right-to-life crowd. Then, with our decision in December, we upset the pro-choice crowd. And now we’re going to make the right-to-life crowd mad all over again. How do we stop doing that?”
The Komen issue on Twitter generated a steady drumbeat of chatter, with mentions of the issue averaging 3,000 an hour, with a huge spike of more than 15,000 messages posted after news of the reversal broke. More than half the conversation was driven by women, with the loudest share coming from California and New York, which accounted for 25 percent of all chatter, followed by Texas at 9 percent. Twitter users in Washington, D.C., and Florida each contributed 5 percent of the conversation.
“Real-time social networks enable the nation’s collective dissent to be felt immediately,” said Mark Ghuneim, chief executive officer of Trendrr, a social media analysis company. “This type of swarm behavior is a new phenomenon that is increasingly important. It’s a good example of how social networks such as Twitter enable democratic movements to be felt, not just by government but by corporations and organizations.”
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