Did Komen play it smart or cave?
A fury of social media activists have bombarded the net this week with outcries about the Susan G. Komen breast cancer charity's decision handed down on Tuesday to potentially pull grant funding from 'aborition-mill-disguised-as-a-women's-health-facility', Planned Parenthood. Great, right? Well, it appeared that Komen had caved to the feminazi backlash from this decision by Friday morning, because as Rush explained, "Abortion is the sacrament to the religion of liberalism," so to consider pulling funding is damn near a pretext for rioting! And as Kathryn Jean Lopez of NRO's The Corner wrote, "The only thing that seems clear is that Komen is desperately trying to make the campaign to kill Komen stop — and that is what the venom from Planned Parenthood in recent days has been aimed at."
However, now there's a question of whether the Komen charity actually caved to the bullying tactics of the Left or obfuscated the issue, thus calming their adversaries. The actual statement from Komen's president made it unclear if Planned Parenthood is going to receive future funding:
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.
Well first, the pro-abortion lobby is nothing BUT political! Secondly, YES, Planned Parenthood has been under criminal investigation on multiple violations throughout the nation, and currently finds itself under the microscope of a congressional investigation from the misappropriation of funds to sex trafficking cover-ups. I'd say that covers 'criminal and conclusive in nature', wouldn't you agree? Jill Stanek writes, "The more I read Komen’s statement, the more brilliant it becomes. Planned Parenthood loses its PR edge if any of its affiliates are convicted on criminal grounds."
But next is the final bolded text. It's obviously troubling news for pro-life advocates that Komen will continue to fund existing grants to Planned Parenthood. On that front, it is indeed a 'cave'. But as Austin Ruse, the president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, explains, "This represents nothing new. We have known and have reported that they are continuing five grants through 2012." But he says of the second clause concerning eligibility, "Any group can apply for anything. It does not mean they are going to get anything." And to that end, the Washington Post learns from a Komen board member that funding is not guaranteed to Planned Parenthood.
In fact, Komen CEO Nancy Brinker told reporters yesterday, “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.” Now, the Weekly Standard's John McCormack points out that while today’s statement doesn't address the pass-through issue, that could mean that Planned Parenthood can still apply for Komen grants, but its applications may not be approved, because they don't provide direct mammogram services.
This lady may just end up being a more impressive negotiator than initially thought, or she may just be attempting to soften the blow of reversal. I guess time will truly tell on this one.
There are alternatives
This entire fiasco between Komen and Planned Parenthood initiated a discussion between my wife and I on the topic of alternatives. Despite Planned Parenthood, despite the mainstream media, despite liberal activists among the blogosphere, despite them all and their attempts to portray the Left's top abortion appendage as the sole provider of women's low-income/no-insurance healthcare (which reminds one of Pelosi's "women can die on the floor" comment), I knew instinctively that there had to be others that didn't use the issue of healthcare as a cover for abortion. And after a little research, I discovered that was indeed the case.
To get the point across, I think perhaps it's best to use some illustrations, in particular, maps. So here's the first map of how many Planned Parenthood facilities are throughout our nation:
Ok, the next map I want to show you is facilities across the U.S. known as Federally Qualified Health Centers (or FQHCs):
Notice the comparable, and in some areas, contrasting, density?
FQHCs and 'look alikes' (Community Health Centers) provide vital primary care to Americans with limited financial resources. Their are 1,124 health centers spread across all 50 states and U.S. territories. In 2010, the health centers served an estimated 20 million patients, and are forecast to serve 40 million patients by 2015.
FQHCs serve community residents from all walks of life, including people enrolled in employer-based insurances, Medicare/Medicaid, or public health insurances. They also serve people with limited resources who struggle to access care through traditional channels, including the homeless, residents of public housing, migrant farm workers and others with emergent and chronic health care needs.
Out of the 20% of low-income, uninsured people, 70% of their patients live in poverty. They provide comprehensive primary care and preventive care, including physical, dental, and mental health/substance abuse services to persons of all ages, regardless of their ability to pay or health insurance status, and utilize a sliding-fee scale based on patients' family income and size. Also, it's important to note that while some FQHCs may in fact refer for abortions and offer contraception, they're services aren't catered so narrowly towards the abortion industry, as with Planned Parenthood, but rather overall healthcare, from young to old, male and female.
This is part of that 'safety net' for the poor that costs a few billion dollars to run, but actually helps save the health care system between $10-20 billion a year by helping patients avoid emergency rooms and making better use of preventive services...that includes mammograms, paps and other women's preventative care, which circles us right back around to the Komen situation...
Planned Parenthood does NOT provide mammograms, it only refers to outside entities.
So why do you suppose after lying about providing mammograms, Planned Parenthood and its supporters would flip out over a breast cancer charity's consideration to cut off grants? And as John McCormack of the Weekly Standard expounds in another of his articles, "Why does Planned Parenthood feel entitled to a private charity's donations...Isn't Komen free to give its money to organizations that do more than provide mammogram "referrals" and breast cancer screenings?" Couldn't they do precisely what CEO Nancy Brinker would prefer, cutting out funding to referral facilities, and providing the dollars directly to cancer screening services and treatment specialists?
What it all boils down to, is that ANY decision by ANY entity, private or public, to defund Planned Parenthood in the least of degrees (and Komen's less than $1 million isn't going to harm their bottom line), poses a symbolic threat to their highest priority: abortion-on-demand. A practice which they've proven time and time again to protect at any cost (e.g., not reporting statutory rape or incest, protecting sex trafficking, etc.) in order to "protect women's rights." They hide behind other institutions for the benefit of 'diversification', so, as McCormack identifies, "it isn't publicly identified and isolated as simply the biggest part of the abortion industry," even when every thinking American knows that to be the case.
UPDATE: The Komen foundation's Vice President, Karen Handel, has resigned over the Planned Parenthood funding reversal. In her resignation letter, she says:
"I am deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale, and my involvement in it. I openly acknowledge my role in the matter and continue to believe our decision was the best one for Komen’s future and the women we serve. However, the decision to update our granting model was made before I joined Komen, and the controversy related to Planned Parenthood has long been a concern to the organization." ...
"What was a thoughtful and thoroughly reviewed decision – one that would have indeed enabled Komen to deliver even greater community impact – has unfortunately been turned into something about politics. This is entirely untrue. This development should sadden us all greatly."
It's unfortunately appearing more and more that CEO Brinker has indeed folded over playing it smart...
