So let’s say you so loathe Planned Parenthood for the fact that 3 percent of its services go to abortions that you don’t give a fig about the reasons why the Susan G.Komen for the Cure Foundation, the leading breast cancer advocacy organization in America, ended its long partnership with Planned Parenthood. You’re just plain happy.
Or let’s say you buy into the fantasy that poor women can easily find someplace other than Planned Parenthood to go and get mammograms–which save lives by detecting breast cancer in its earliest stages. Or let’s say you even buy the argument of Komen’s founder and chief executive, Nancy G. Brinker, who held a news conference yesterday (desperately trying to contain the damage caused by the decision) insisting that Komen’s decision had “nothing to do with abortion or politics.” Throwing around the smack of “mission” statements and “outcomes” that we in higher education know all too well, she unpersuasively argued that Komen’s “newly implemented grant-making procedures” were not intended in the least to make a target of Planned Parenthood.
Let’s also turn a blind eye to the fact that Ms. Brinker is a long-time conservative Republican (a group not exactly known for loving Planned Parenthood) and that she recently hired a new vice president at Komen—Karen Handel, who, during her losing run for governor of Georgia, vigorously and publicly advocated defunding Planned Parenthood.
And let’s even forget that Komen gave Planned Parenthood a measly $700,000 last year—measly because relative to the $93-million it gave out to finance 19 programs, that’s small change to Komen (Brinker makes almost $500,000—admittedly hardly atypical for a CEO of a charity, but enough to make her plenty comfortable compared to poor women seeking mammograms). And let’s even ignore the pressure the religious right has been exerting on Komen not to give money that would go to Planned Parenthood, urging anti-abortion sympathizers not to give money to Komen as long as it kept any ties to Planned Parenthood. (This is the explanation for the cutoff of funds given to The New York Times by John D. Raffaelli, a Komen board member and Washington lobbyist). And finally, let’s forget that Florida Representative Cliff Stearns is “conducting” an “investigation” of Planned Parenthood—not, mind you, of Komen or any of the myriad charitable organizations that are out there raising and using money for charity in dubious fashion—just Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood will survive, continuing to offer mammograms and general reproductive health care to women (and men) who cannot find anyplace else that’s affordable. The uproar at Komen’s decision was so instantaneous, passionate, and furious that within days of the announcement the organization raised enough in contributions (including a $250,000 matching grant from Mayor Bloomberg in New York) to cover all the Komen money Planned Parenthood would be ineligible for in the future.
Let’s ignore all these things I’ve mentioned for the moment, and think instead about how fighting breast cancer, which sounds so noble as an abstraction, in practice is often a deal with the devil. Lea Goldman, in “The Big Business of Breast Cancer,” argues organizations like Komen use the money they raise mostly to raise more money, and are in love with paying out fat salaries to administrators and family members. The article makes it clear that breast cancer research has oodles of money—estimated at around $6-billion a year. It’s time for Congress to put up or shut up about Planned Parenthood and take a long and hard look at Komen and other charities of its ilk.
For a brilliant take-down of all those pink ribbons, pink mugs, pink T-shirts, pink walks-for-breast-cancer, and wearing pink to make us feel all warm and fuzzy about our charitable impulses when what we’re really doing is simply supporting a massive marketing campaign that feeds nicely into corporate America’s marketing strategies, read here.
As for me, I can’t ignore all the stuff I proposed ignoring here in this post. I’ll continue giving to Planned Parenthood. But don’t worry. The next time I see one of those pink parades in New York, if I’m there, it’ll be with a picket sign.
