The Great Susan Komen Planned Parenthood battle in the culture wars has certainly opened many people’s eyes to the strong opinions of their friends and family on the subject of abortion – the moral standing of the act itself, and the complications when charitable donations come into conflict with donors’ values – at any point along the ideological spectrum.
I hope I’m accurately paraphrasing the argument of those who differ with me in good faith over the merits of Komen partnering with Planned Parenthood. Here’s what I understand you to be saying:
- Planned Parenthood provides many important healthcare services to low-income women who would not seek out breast exams on their own, but would receive them in the course of other care during visits to Planned Parenthood clinics.
- For Komen to deny funds to Planned Parenthood (for whatever reasons you ascribe to Komen) is to deny these women breast health services they would otherwise not receive.
- The effect of Komen’s decision to discontinue partnership with Planned Parenthood, therefore, would be an increase in breast cancer among women who are least able to pay for the care they desperately need.
- Pro-lifers who don’t support Komen are showing a lack of concern for low-income women’s health because their actions mean that women who rely solely (or largely) on Planned Parenthood for their health care are not going to have their breast exams funded or be referred for mammograms.
I want to set aside any discussion of whether the above points are valid in terms of what level of care Planned Parenthood actually provides. That’s not what I am asking people to consider.
My personal belief is that Komen was trying to make it possible for more of us to donate to their efforts by removing an ideological roadblock – the channeling of a portion of our donations to an organization that also provides abortions. I can’t in good conscience support that, so I donate money to other worthy causes instead of to Komen. We’ve heard a whole lot from the donors on either side.
But what about the recipients of the services funded by Komen? What about those low-income women whose consciences prevent them from going to Planned Parenthood for their much-needed healthcare?
Regardless of whether you agree with these women’s stance on abortion, surely we all care about their overall health. Surely we all want these women to be able to receive breast exams, mammograms, other preventive care, and treatment.
It seems to me – and perhaps the Komen foundation had this in mind, as well – that a movement towards funneling resources to local clinics that don’t also provide abortions means that more women are going to end up receiving treatment. Low-income women of any ideological persuasion can be served by clinics that are uninvolved with the abortion issue, without their consciences being put between a rock and a hard place. Why would the Komen foundation want to set up an ideological roadblock for women who oppose abortion but need breast exams and mammograms?
Some may say “discontinuing funding for Planned Parenthood is an ideological roadblock!” But I submit – it’s not the same. “This organization supports something I find morally objectionable, and so I can’t in good conscience give them my money (either as a donor or as a recipient of their services)” isn’t the same as “this organization doesn’t support another organization I think is doing a lot of good.”
I understand that a great number of people, many in positions of tremendous power, support Planned Parenthood without reservation. What I don’t understand is why these supporters insist that Komen’s attempt to extricate themselves from the abortion debate – an action which could have meant more funds going to clinics that both pro-choice and pro-life women could visit without violating their own moral values – means they should now quit donating to Komen, period, and donate more money to Planned Parenthood.
For my part, I want to get more involved with local breast health centers that are uninvolved, pro or con, with the abortion debate. I’d like to donate my web design services to a local breast health center in the Houston area that provides free mammograms and breast exams to low-income women and does not partner with abortion providers. Please use my contact form if you have organizations to suggest, and then I can contact the organization after I’ve learned some more about it myself.
I hope that my tone in this post has come across as civil, and I’d like to ask that any commenters adopt a similar approach. I know this is an issue that many of us feel very strongly about.
Related: Lauren of Sipping Lemonade points out that ”there are nearly 7,000 Federally Qualified Health Centers in the U.S. — compared to only 800 Planned Parenthood clinics. Plus, the FQHC’s provide annual exams, STD testing, and everything else Planned Parenthood provides – except abortion.”
I loved this post – very well said and articulated. Thank you!
I wondered much of this myself, especially since I have been in the position of relying on non-profit clinics for care for my family.
Well-done and helpful- thanks.
I’ve also spent time at free clinics. If I had gotten a voucher at Planned Parenthood after an exam there, and then gone to a community health clinic for the actual mammogram, it would have been two days worth of sitting waiting, not just one. So, there’s that, as well.
“My personal belief is that Komen was trying to make it possible for more of us to donate to their efforts by removing an ideological roadblock”
Would it be that that were true …
It’s obviously not true because they lied about the reason for defunding PP. Komen said it was due to PP being under investigation but Penn State is under criminal investigation but they continue to fund them.
If Komen is troubled by funding PP because of abortion, be honest, say so, defund and move on. I would have no problem with that.
It’s the dishonesty that troubles me and I sense you are an honest and sincere person. Doesn’t it trouble you a bit?
Hi, James – thanks for stopping by.
You know, it’s funny, because I wrote this post originally on Saturday and then decided to wait to publish it until I’d made some changes to my web hosting environment – point being, since the time between my original composition of the post and the eventual publication thereof, Karen Handel has resigned and I’ve somewhat changed my mind as to how exactly things went down behind the scenes at Komen. I think they hoped by presenting an alternate explanation of their decision, they could sidestep the real reason they wanted to stop funding Planned Parenthood.
I do think they were disingenuous about the rationale they offered the public with regard to ending their partnership with Planned Parenthood, and it’s obviously come back to bite them. I tend to think the backlash would still have occurred if they’d come out and said “We have decided to no longer partner with organizations that also provide abortions,” but then they would have laid their cards on the table. They also could have pointed out that countless other health-based charities don’t partner with Planned Parenthood, either – not because they’re taking a stance on the issue, but because they want nothing to do with the issue. Once Komen started working with Planned Parenthood, it became political.
Kind of rambling here but yes, I do think it’s better to be up front with your reasons for doing something.
Having said that, I also think their stated explanation of preferring to directly fund mammograms instead of pass-through grants also seems like a better approach to serving women in need.
Sometimes I reply twice.
How does the fact that Komen was disingenuous about their motives mean that they weren’t trying to remove an ideological roadblock for donors and recipients who oppose abortion? I think what you’re saying is that if they were trying to widen the pool of donors by separating themselves from this controversial organization, they should have said so.
Ah, wait – or maybe what you’re saying is that this had nothing to do with appealing to a broader selection of donors, it reflected a pro-life agenda behind the scenes at Komen. I’m not sure I believe that. I know Karen Handel’s been a lightning rod for this whole thing but it doesn’t make sense to me that they would have partnered with Planned Parenthood in the first place if Komen is in the clutches of the pro-life movement. I think they’re just generally clueless.
(I realize “clutches of the pro-life movement” is inflammatory.)
I am not a public health expert, nor do I play one on TV.
I wonder, also, if part of the reason that pro-Planned Parenthood folks are so exercised about this issue is the assumption that the women who receive breast exams and mammogram referrals from PP rely on said organization as the only source for their healthcare. That’s kind of what I was getting at originally but I didn’t phrase it quite that way.
I also was listening to a discussion on NPR last night in which one of the women (can’t remember her name) made the point that despite the criticisms of Komen for “pinkwashing,” etc., they have definitely raised awareness of breast cancer among low-income minorities – I believe this woman represented a group that advocates for Hispanic women. I think we provide lip service to this idea of “awareness” and correlate it with things like “change your Facebook status to reflect the color of your bra!” but that this is, on balance, a benefit of the pink-ribbon branded everything.
I’ve listened to both arguments, and I’ll stipulate up front that I’m adamantly against abortion. I think its fair to point out to everyone what PP really is and really does. They don’t provide a full spectrum of services that you would associate with women’s health. Their care is centered on preventing and terminating pregnancies, and all other services are ancillary to that. I did find it hard to believe that it was Komen’s funds that allowed PP’s docs or nurses to give a very basic breast exam. The marginal cost of the screening (which is a manual examination) plus a referral has to be near zero. And of course, there is no follow-up care.
In the end, I concluded that the Komen grant was more about keeping up the appearance of providing a comprehensive array of “women’s health” services. Once Komen said that they wanted to give their money to people who directly provide the services, it revealed that PP was not really a substantial provider of those services.
That’s the only reasonable explanation of their vicious attacks against Komen. The money wasn’t really that much (I’m not sure it even covered Cecile Richard’s salary.) But the publicity created a huge windfall for them and they didn’t seem to care much that one of the great women’s health charities would be seriously damaged by their take-no-prisoners tactics. I remember when getting breast cancer meant you lost your breast, period, and that’s if you were lucky. After 30 years of relentless campaigning, women of all social stripes and situations have an infinitely better chance of surviving intact. PP’s mortality trajectory is precipitously in the opposite direction, and as they’ve become more powerful and more influential we have more STD’s to go with the body count.