This morning on the Komen website:
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.
The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. 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. 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.
Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.
It is our hope and we believe it is time for everyone involved to pause, slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women. We urge everyone who has participated in this conversation across the country over the last few days to help us move past this issue. We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics – anyone’s politics.
Starting this afternoon, we will have calls with our network and key supporters to refocus our attention on our mission and get back to doing our work. We ask for the public’s understanding and patience as we gather our Komen affiliates from around the country to determine how to move forward in the best interests of the women and people we serve.
We extend our deepest thanks for the outpouring of support we have received from so many in the past few days and we sincerely hope that these changes will be welcomed by those who have expressed their concern.
So they caved. Well, I just saved myself the 25 bucks I was going to donate today. What a gutless organization.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseUh oh. If you're like me, you just moved Komen back onto the qualified charity list. Might they be considering deleting themselves so quickly?
Well, let them do it quickly. While you can still stop payment on some of your checks.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSorry right-wing cuckoos, can't win 'em all.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNo, but we can win most of them. And all it takes is most of them. PP will be off the government teat when the GOP takes control of the Senate next year.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseKomen plans to continue funding for breast cancer prevention and research without unnecessary and divisive entanglements with the abortion industry's biggest player, and the Left insists that this is somehow a betrayal of women and pressures Komen back into relationship.
Who is the cuckoo one, here?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHeheh.,..you mean because we refuse to play dirty, ignore decency, and threaten and bully people into our point of view?
We call that winning. You call it losing.
Call us "cuckoos" all you want jerzeycalendars, but we're okay with that.
So's history.
So's America.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"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."
It's hard to disagree with this, isn't it? A general policy not to fund any organization Congress investigates is not a smart policy. That's putting the judgment of congressional committees in place of your own.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs a policy, I could buy it without the "and conclusive" part. What does that mean -- we'll do business with every shady character, even those currently under credible criminal investigation, except for convicted criminals?
Wow, big of them to be such careful stewards of their donors' money.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political."
Nice to know that facilitating child rape is merely "political" to a liberal. Like there are two sides to the issue: pro-rape and anti-rape. Where we come down is based upon political preferences.
There is truly evil in this world...
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"We urge everyone who has participated in this conversation across the country over the last few days to help us move past this issue. We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics – anyone’s politics."
...starting after this decision, I guess.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIn other words, the decisions of the Susan G. Komen foundation on grant applications is now purely political.
At least with respect to those filed by Planned Parenthood.
Allowing a philanthropic organization to be shaken down by left wing political pressure hardly renders opposite decisions rendered on the basis thereof non-political.
"Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors". That concern has now been fully subverted to the political concerns of Planned Parenthood.
"slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women."
Except, they just did the opposite, as the money PP was receiving didn't go to mammograms. And it still won't.
But, at least now the public knows that Planned Parenthood is not involved in the fight against cancer, and Susan G. Komen's grants are not necessarily, either.
So, in the interests of full disclosure, people can determine if a donation to SGK is really the most effective place to donate to help fight against cancer.
I bet I could donate to any number of a plethora of research labs directly, without bothering to channel it to a non-profit organization that cares more about being liked by leftists in the media than it does at all about women.
SGK further politicized itself by referring to the investigation of Planned Parenthood as a political one. The ignorance of that comment -- given what it is that Planned Parenthood is accused of doing, and the evidence that exists to prove it -- proves its wantonly political nature.
I wonder if the fight against prostate cancer will eventually become hijacked by pro-abortion zealotry.
Hold onto your doughnuts, Gentlemen!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm glad I didn't quickly buy into the Komen cheerleading this week. Trust but verify people. A group like Komen doesn't just suddenly have a change of heart overnight. Even a candidate like Mitt Romney still has to prove himself on the pro-life issue.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMan, that was fast. I don't why it works this way, but liberals are exponentially better at feigning indignation and rousing the rabble to spread that feigned indignation in a far more productive way than conservatives are.
And, they're quite adept at focusing pressure on corporate or organizational interests to get them to bend to the "progressive" will. They do it in a way that is almost never equaled, let alone bettered by conservatives. From a purely political activist perspective, its admirable, or at least enviable. Liberals have a death grip on entertainment, education and public activism. It's no wonder the government gets bigger and bigger each year while it adopts an increasingly progressive posture.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe flipside is this: it takes courage to do the right thing.
Most modern organizations do nothing to foster courage; the social dynamic of pop culture typically punishes acts of courage -- confusing them, almost psychopathically, with acts of conformity.
Yeah, the lefties are good at agitating. But their targets are soft. You think HHS is acting out of courage to repress Catholic employers? No, they're acting out of the much firmer will-to-power. Rage all you want in protest, HHS isn't relying on courage to stay its course -- because it's not even trying to do the right thing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"But their targets are soft. "
I don't know about that. Komen didn't cave because of the threat of an exodus by individual donors (or, at least small individual donors). They caved because big corporate sponsors told them to reverse course, or lose funding.
Somehow, the left is able to bend the will of huge companies - companies that I wouldn't call soft targets. Why can leftists accomplish this, but conservatives can't? How are activists that represent such a minority opinion leverage that opinion into so much action? It's a mystery.
"You think HHS is acting out of courage to repress Catholic employers?"
This kind of underscores the point I'm trying to make. Catholics represent what? 35% of the country, or a bit more. You would think it would be political death to rub 35% of the electorate the wrong way. But, it isn't.
If Catholics were just as angry as the pro-abortion crowd, and as effective as that crowd was at dismantling Komen, HHS never would have made the decision that they made. But, Catholics aren't.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFair enough. I still think Catholics have the higher hill to climb. Think of it this way: for Catholic organizations to resist requires courage; for HHS to dig in its heels only requires that it be... as partisan as it already is.
Same for PP. All it had to do this week was act like PP. Only more so for a few days. Komen, on the other hand had to walk a tightrope. And it slipped and fell pretty quickly.
Catholic bishops could slip too. We hope they don't, and we ourselves don't intend to slip. But we know how easy it is to slip. HHS is driven by more worldly motivations of power and money -- people tend to hold on tight when those are their goals.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, I will now refuse to buy any product that directs a portion of its proceeds to the Komen Foundation. Komen, of course, is free to spend or withhold its funds as it sees fit, but I will not subsidize any organization that in turn subsidizes the abortion mill and gangster racket that is Planned Parenthood. Aside from losing my dollars, Komen, in so easily and spinelessly being brought to heel by leftist thug tactics, has lost my respect and earned my contempt.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLet's remember this lesson from this debacle once the dust settles: The one quality that liberal-left types admire more than anything else is....
Cowardice.
'nuff said.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe one good thing about this PP/Komen big media episode, is that each has brought light to the evil side of the other! Their agendas are exposed and there for all to see, The rest is up to our consciences! we will all be held acountable down the road as to wether we supported the mass killings of millions of babies, or wether we stood firm and apposed the evil that it is! I know where my dollars and I stand, and it's for neither of these two!
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