The Susan G. Komen foundation succumbed today to a relentless barrage of political bullying, a fact that is not only sad news for those who cherish the sanctity and dignity of all life, but also for all of us who believe that a private philanthropic organization shouldn’t be subjected to such harassment.
That the Komen foundation apologized for its decision to halt contributions to Planned Parenthood is another illustration that political correctness is running amok.
Speaking on behalf of many who have committed their lives to defending the most defenseless, I lament the loss of principled decisions in our culture.
Consider the facts:
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The Komen Foundation is a private philanthropic organization. It has every right to fund or not fund charities or causes of its choice.
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That certain individuals and causes are “outraged” over Komen’s announcement is, in itself, outrageous.
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To complain about a gift not given is the highest form of presumption and arrogance.
And what about Planned Parenthood?
According to its annual report, the nation’s leading abortion provider is worth in excess of $1 billion. In 2010, abortion procedures constituted 91 percent (329,445) of Planned Parenthood’s services for pregnant women.
Yet, to follow their illogical argument, to have lost Komen’s projected yearly gift of $680,000 was somehow going to cripple their empire — and prevent them from continuing to offer mammograms. But Planned Parenthood centers do not offer mammograms, and instead refer women to other clinics for such services.
And let’s not forget what instigated this entire episode: Planned Parenthood is under federal investigation. They’ve been accused of using taxpayer money to perform abortions, a charge they deny, but common sense suggests otherwise. It’s something of a shell game. In 2009 Planned Parenthood received $363.2 million in federal money. In fact, since 1970, Planned Parenthood has received billions of dollars of taxpayer money.
Planned Parenthood is regularly lobbying for even more federal subsidies. So not only do they now want to take more of your money via taxes — but they also want to be able to tell private foundations whom they (should) give to!
It defies logic.
Furthermore, as I indicated earlier this week, the relationship between Komen and Planned Parenthood has always struck me as a peculiar affiliation. That’s because according to some researchers, there’s evidence of increased risk of breast cancer after an abortion. Thus, the very disease Komen is trying to fight is potentially increased by the services Planned Parenthood provides!
The Susan G. Komen foundation has done much commendable work, and as the world’s largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists, they didn’t deserve to be harassed and bullied like they’re being today.
At the core of this matter, though, is a fundamental difference of opinion. Should private organizations have the right to operate under the rule of law? Should they be permitted to distribute their own funds to whom they see fit? Or should they be subjected to the rule and pressure of a mob mentality that is no respecter of independent rights, one who demands the donor’s money?
What we’ve witnessed this week is how bullies beat down their victims. It’s sad, unfortunate and most seriously, a tragic turn of events for the dignity and preservation of the defenseless victims of abortion.
— Jim Daly is president of Focus on the Family.
I never understand this line of thinking. No one forced Komen to do anything. The reason they took back the ban on PP was because they thought it would benefit the Komen Foundation. Why are people not allowed to complain all of a sudden? You can either argue that people don't have their facts straight, which you sort of do here, or that someone is breaking the law but you don't have the right to argue that people shouldn't be allowed to voice their opinion. That doesn't make you the victim of a bully. That makes you a crybaby.
One more point: A lot of people were not just upset because it was PP that was going to be banned from future funding. They were upset because Komen hid behind the veil of a "policy change" that was clearly just made to single out PP so it didn't "seem political". That, my friend, is pretty dirty pool and not what you'd expect from this shining beacon on a hill. FWIW, Komen gets terrible ratings from just about every charity rating organization due to their low giving rate.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLet's leave aside the canard about abortions increasing breast cancer which you might wish for but nature/God doesn't abide.
Kormen was and is totally free to fund or not fund anyone. It just turned out that their main contributor base doesn't agree with their politically motivated and lied about action. And, this caused people like me to look into them and see just how little of their money goes to actual research and how much to lavish administrative spending. I'm putting my money elsewhere for that reason alone, but thank them for the politically inept move for informing me about their inefficiency.
Gary
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNotice the word 'Pregnant Women' instead of Women, it is meant to mislead.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Should private organizations have the right to operate under the rule of law? Should they be permitted to distribute their own funds to whom they see fit?"
Good question. Perhaps then Daly can explain the numerous boycotts Focus on The Family has led against (among others) Disney, Kraft Foods, Ford, et al. for donating their own resources to GLBT causes or even for just expressing support of said causes. To say his "illogical argument" here is hypocritical is putting it mildly.
In addition, "That’s because according to some researchers, there’s evidence of increased risk of breast cancer after an abortion." This has been thoroughly disproven and reported as so by both the American Cancer Institute and the National Cancer Institute. "At this time, the scientific evidence does not support the notion that abortion of any kind raises the risk of breast cancer or any other type of cancer."
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Surely supporters of Komen can find a better spokesperson for their cause than this.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTo boycott a company because you have a problem with what they do is the American way. People boycotted BP awhile back. Others boycotted oil from the Middle East because of terrorist ties. It is a far cry from what PP has done to Komen. Komen was gifting that money to PP and decided not to. Does PP think they are entitled to someone else's money?
But let's say for sake of argument that you are right and they are similar. Then you should have no problem with what FOTF did years ago with their boycotts. But I think otherwise. You have a huge problem with the FOTF boycotts. But from your comments, you do not seem to have a problem with the bullying going on with PP. You think they are the same yet you are ok with what PP did to Komen but NOT ok with FOTF boycotting. Makes me wonder...
Who is being hypocritical now?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGive it up, hughman. They can dish it out, but they can't take it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI would hope that practically no one with a lick of sense, on either side, is still a "supporter of Komen" after this week. (And, of course, many of us have deeply disliked them for years already.)
But yes, pro-lifers can surely find a better spokesman than this.
In its better moments, the National Review family provides just that sort of thing--and they've had some very good posts even in the midst of today's reality-distortion maelstrom. Sad to see even a tiny bit of that good undone by publishing turkeys like this though.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThank you for pointing out the utter hypocrisy of Daly and his group. Brilliant. Simply brilliant.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNRO commentators keep writing about the minuscule amount of Komen's contribuitions to PP, compared to the latter's total endowment. But surely that, as most NRO commentators assuredly know, is not the real point. How else to explain the protracted endzone dance on this website ever since Komen announced its original decision? This was seen by PP as a success by the religious right in its effort to own the definition of, and therefore thoroughly discredit, the organization. PP, reasonably enough, does not want to be defined by the religious right, and fought back in spades. No doubt this is not the last skirmish on this front, and no doubt the religious right will have some triumphs. Just own up to what happened here: religious right folk pressured Komen, Komen buckled, was surprised at the strength of the backlash, and re-buckled.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf I read the figures correctly, the Komen money means 91 cents toward each breast exam. Is Planned Parenthood saying they'd turn a woman away over less than a dollar?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYes.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBut the lobbying that the pro-life movement did to try to get Komen to drop PP in the first place was just friendly advice?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMaybe in the ultimate goal of reducing and eliminating breast cancer, abortion is considered the ultimate preventive care.
Along the lines of when Nancy Pelosi famously said that we need more abortions because babies cost the State too much money:
"STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?
PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?
PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy."
Think of all the breast cancer treatments we wouldn't have to pay for...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTell me you are not so dumb as to not know the difference between contraception and abortion.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen the Right does it, it's called "gutsy, grass-roots activism". When the Left does it, it's "bullying".
A charitable foundation can do what it wants with its money. People can do what they want with their money. And people who don't like the direction a charitable foundation decides to take can decide not to donate if they want. That's all that happened here. People let Komen know they weren't going to donate if they stopped supporting the organization that does more breast cancer screenings for more women than any other, regardless of their ability to pay.
Maybe the free market, the private sector, can come up with a better solution than Planned Parenthood, but until that happens, women need access to general health care and reproductive health care, and if they so decide, abortions, which are legal procedures.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePosted this in another thread, but thought I'd share here, too.
This is a quote from Ms. Nancy Brinker, of Komen's Race for the Cure:
“We have decided not to fund, wherever possible, pass-through grants. We were giving them money, they were sending women out for mammograms. What we would like to have are clinics where we can directly fund mammograms.”
So now, PP will continue taking a cut of that money, since there is an administrative cost associated with processing it. The people who provide the actual mammography will therefore receive LESS money to perform that service.
In other words, the ridiculous (and often childish...Wiki entry re-writes, hacking, etc.) backlash will result in harm to the stated goal of providing women's health services. If the folks who reacted so strongly would have stopped to actually listen to Komen, things wouldn't have worked themselves out this way.
I read someone elsewhere compare the initial Komen decision to the NAACP suddenly supporting efforts to make blacks ride in the back of the bus. (An absurd analogy, I know.)
However, to extend the NAACP analogy one step further: The backlash is like boycotting a business for providing work to unemployed minorities instead of sending the NAACP money in order to lobby the government for more jobs for minorities.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDeviate from PP's playbook, and you're a fascist, apparently. Of course, let's not forget that it was a fascist, Margaret Sanger, who founded PP in the first place.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse>> 91 percent (329,445) of Planned Parenthood’s services for pregnant women <<
..and 3 percent of their services for women (pregnant and non-pregnant).
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOh please, do you really have to use the B word at NRO? Let the weenies on the left snivel about "bullies."
That concept is simply not befitting an adult.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJim Daly heads up Focus On The Family. That organization values life and offers help to families. They support family and pro life issues. They are supported by people who freely give to them as well as resources they sell. Planned Parenthood makes $$$ by forcing organizations and the government to support what they do. And what do they do? Mainly, they perform abortions by the thousands each month. Snuffing out human life. PP is a moral plague in our nation and the world. Who's side would you rather be on?
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