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Christianity Today, February (Web-Only), 2012

Speaking Out

The Komen Fiasco's Silver Lining

Small comforts (and other sizes) emerge from Planned Parenthood’s bullying tactics.

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway | posted 2/03/2012 04:07PM

Comments (18)

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Editor's note: This is not today's only article on Komen and Planned Parenthood. In addition to our news report, you might also enjoy Albert Mohler's argument that there is "no neutral ground when it Comes to Planned Parenthood," Matthew Lee Anderson's examination of "The Politics of Breast Cancer," and Russell Moore's warning on "the wrong lessons to draw from the Komen-Planned Parenthood debacle."

When news broke that breast cancer charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure was halting its partnerships with Planned Parenthood affiliates, abortion opponents cheered. The relationship had been a sticking point that limited donations from those who wanted to help fight breast cancer but didn't want to support Planned Parenthood, a $1 billion organization that performs more than 300,000 abortions a year.

Even though Komen grants to Planned Parenthood were relatively small, working out to $680,000 last year, its supporters were enraged. Planned Parenthood fans filled up social media sites with complaints against Komen's heresy. An unrelenting media and political blitz began. Within two days, Komen backtracked.

So what began as a victory in the fight against abortion ended in what seemed a particularly cruel defeat, a reminder of how much elite culture is aligned in defense of abortion and its largest provider. But there is a silver lining to the disaster, and not just for textbook writers looking for case studies in catastrophic public relations failures.

Now everyone knows that Komen funnels money to the abortion business. For years, pro-life activists had been attempting to alert Komen donors to its entanglement with Planned Parenthood. Progress had been made in recent years, with Komen acknowledging and attempting to downplay its association. But now, only those who don't watch the nightly news, read a newspaper, or have a Facebook account are oblivious to Komen's relationship with the abortion business. The media pushed the line that declining to fund Planned Parenthood is political, but they may be surprised to find out that funding Planned Parenthood is also viewed as political.

Planned Parenthood's lack of mammogram services has been exposed. In March 2011, Congress was debating budget cuts. Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards gave an interview where she claimed these cuts would hurt Planned Parenthood's ability to offer mammograms. Pro-life activist Lila Rose released a video documenting that Planned Parenthood facilities don't offer mammograms. While Planned Parenthood clinics do offer referrals to medical facilities that offer mammograms, Komen's initial grant policy revision indicated that such "pass-through facilities" are less effective than facilities that actually test and treat breast health. The Komen kerfuffle also reminded Americans that Planned Parenthood is the country's largest abortion provider. Planned Parenthood likes to present itself as a benevolent provider of women's health services, downplaying the 300,000-plus abortions it performs annually. Until the Komen media frenzy, many people probably believed Planned Parenthood did much more than offer prescriptions for mammograms.

Any pretense of media objectivity on the abortion issue has been destroyed. The week preceding Komen's announcement, abortion opponents who attended the annual March for Life Washington were ignored, as per usual. And while some in the mainstream media mentioned the Obama administration's mandate that Catholic and some other religious charities be forced to choose between serving the poor and violating deeply-held beliefs on abortion, birth control and sterilization, others didn't mention it, even after dozens of bishops addressed the issue.

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February (Web-Only) 2012, Vol. 56

Comments (18)

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Displaying 1–5 of 18 comments

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Cynthia

February 08, 2012 8:29am

No-one is to blame for the Komen firestorm but Komen. Karen Handel, the organization's new senior vice president for public policy, along with other executives, misread their staff and many of their grass roots supporters. They claimed to have instituted a new policy that would have prevented them from donating to organizations under federal investigation; but, the only organization it applied to was Planned Parenthood. Penn State, another Komen funding recipient under government investigation, was untouched. Due to this hypocricy, staff and some board members who support Planned Parenthood resigned, and their stories were leaked to the press. Komen donors who also support women's reproductive rights were appalled, and let Komen know about it in no uncertain terms. What the new Komen directors should have done is inform their staff , board members, and donors that they were morally opposed to abortion, and, therefore, could no longer fund Planned Parenthood.

Cynthia

February 08, 2012 8:13am

Christianity Today's statement that the mainstream media covered the story with a passion and bias rarely seen (providing propaganda for Planned Parenthood) is simply wrong. AP Associated Press, ABC news, CBS, the Washington Post, NPR, the Los Angeles Times all covered the views of Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, who accused Planned Parenthood of employing a "scorched-earth strategy to force compliance with their pro-abortion agenda." A quick search on the internet will bear this out. Even liberal news websites such as Daily Beast, Huffington Post, and Daily Kos covered Yoest's position.

Jeff

February 07, 2012 11:21am

And just like I posted a couple of hours ago, Karen Handel who was the head Of Komen has resigned for she was taking a non political group Komen down the road of conservative Republican politics. And this was and is not a good thing for a group that embraces all women not just a select few.

Jeff

February 07, 2012 8:56am

Once again people on the right tend to only listen to and buy into those who think and believe the same way (I once was one of those). Though Planned Parenthood does do abortions the number of those is around 3% with most going to check up and even adoptions. The real damage is to Komen and their now conservative leader who is anti abortion, anti gay and too conservative to be running an agency that helps all women rich, poor, black, white, latino, straight, gay. Her beliefs slam against the reality of living in a democratic and pluralistic society that stands out in living color against her black and white views of life and death.

Trent

February 07, 2012 12:44am

The claim that Planned Parenthood prevents abortions is ridiculous. To say that they are giving women power in Africa by giving them birth control medicine is absurd. If the men are running around in society smacking women on the head with baseball bats, do you give the women helmets? No, you take away the baseball bats! There's a real solution. Contraception is morally wrong, therefore it is part of the moral calculation. (Gen. 38:9–10, Deut. 23:1). It is unnatural, in forcing the usually healthy (fertile) procreative organs into unnatural (sterile) states. What if instead of spending money on contraceptives, we spent money teaching people how to love? Instead of compromising with evil, we cure it?

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