Susan G. Komen Foundation Dumps Planned Parenthood

Lindsay Beyerstein

Planned Parenthood provides nearly 750,000 breast cancer screenings annually, plus breast health education, and diagnostic and surgical referrals. Some 120,000 of these screenings were underwritten by the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Many of the recipients are low-income women of color, whom public health authorities consider to be at increased risk of breast cancer mortality because of lack of access to early detection.

Yet, last month, Komen caved to bullying from anti-choice zealots and cut off funding to Planned Parenthood for its breast health programs.

An organization that is supposedly dedicated to saving women from breast cancer cuts off funding for programs that save women’s lives because it cares more about making some kind of point about abortion than saving women from breast cancer. Brings new meaning to the term boobs,” doesn’t it? Jodi Jacobson of RH Reality Check has the whole sordid story.

So, the next time the pink ribbon peddlers from the Susan G. Komen Foundation hit you up for money, tell them to shove their kitsch. Give directly to Planned Parenthood instead. 

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Lindsay Beyerstein is an award-winning investigative journalist and In These Times staff writer who writes the blog Duly Noted. Her stories have appeared in Newsweek, Salon, Slate, The Nation, Ms. Magazine, and other publications. Her photographs have been published in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times’ City Room. She also blogs at The Hillman Blog (http://​www​.hill​man​foun​da​tion​.org/​h​i​l​l​m​a​nblog), a publication of the Sidney Hillman Foundation, a non-profit that honors journalism in the public interest.
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