Blog Posts

Susan G. Komen, Planned Parenthood, and — oh, yeah — women

I've been reluctant to post on the whole Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood debacle because I kept feeling like there was information I didn't have. Some of my questions have been answered in the past few days. We now know that:

What's still not clear to me is how much PP's ability to provide breast exams and referrals would have been affected by the loss of this money. If someone is seeing a provider anyway, it doesn't seem to add any cost to also have them do an exam, but I may well be missing something there.

To the extent that women are relying on Planned Parenthood for essential breast health care, pro-lifers who want to promote breast health have three options:

  1. Support those women getting breast health care at PP.
  2. Provide a viable alternative: a clinic where women can get affordable comprehensive reproductive and sexual health care, but that doesn't do abortions.
  3. Leave those particular women to rely solely on donations and services from pro-choicers – which has the side effect of teaching them that abortion proponents are the only people who care about their health.


I'd rather women didn't get their health care from a provider that also performs and lobbies for abortion. I'd rather they didn't have to. But many women do, and pro-lifers needs to ask themselves why. To me, the real outrage in this whole episode is this:

"The grants in question supplied breast health counseling, screening, and treatment to rural women, poor women, Native American women, many women of color who were underserved–if served at all–in areas where Planned Parenthood facilities were often the only infrastructure available. Though it meant losing corporate money from Curves, we were not about to turn our backs on these women."

That was Susan G. Komen founder Nancy Brinker in 2010, explaining why Komen funded Planned Parenthood. Areas where Planned Parenthood facilities were often the only infrastructure available. If you don't want money to go to Planned Parenthood – fix that.