Chad Ellis
United States
Brookline
Massachusetts
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The Susan G. Komen Foundation (the "pink ribbons" folks fighting breast cancer) distribute a lot of their money through grants to local health care providers. Planned Parenthood and its affiliates have been receiving grants from Komen for several years (five, IIRC) and the money is used to provide breast cancer screening and education, mostly for poor women in areas where a PP clinic may be their only option or only convenient option.
A couple of days ago the Foundation implemented a new policy that they would not issue grants to any organization that was under investigation either by the federal or a state government. Planned Parenthood is under investigation in Florida and in Congress although of course it is debatable whether the investigations are based on merits or politics.
AFAIK, Planned Parenthood was the only major grant partner to be affected by this new policy. As a result, the policy was widely seen (both by those who applauded and those who opposed it) as targeting Planned Parenthood and/or giving in to political pressure.
Since the original decision, the Komen foundation has been praised by pro-life groups but criticized (OK, slammed) by many of its supporters. Some board members resigned, one of its affiliates said it would refuse to follow the policy and Planned Parenthood raised about a million dollars, with many of the donations coming from people who said they used to give to Komen and no longer would.
Today Komen has apologized and clarified its policy. Now an investigation will only be disqualifying if it is "criminal and conclusive in nature and not political".
On the gossip side, it will be interesting to see whether Komen's new Senior VP, Karen Handel, will remain with the organization. Prior to joining Komen, Handel ran for Governor of Georgia on a platform that included defunding Planned Parenthood and specifically identified state grants for providing non-abortion services as things she would target. I can imagine she's pretty pissed about the reversal and also that she could use the controversy to position herself as a more prominent pro-life spokesperson.
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Rich Hussein Shipley
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
By some definitions, gaming is my religion
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That is a pretty fast turnaround. They might be able to salvage their reputation. Cancer shouldn't be a political issue.
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King Ævil
South Euclid
Ohio
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The Komen Foundation issued an almost-apology, no less. Perhaps they realized that the investigation of Planned Parenthood was entirely a right-wing harassment device?
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Xander Fulton
United States
Portland
Oregon
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It would appear that the massive social-media fueled instant-organized-opposition thing is not limited in effectiveness to those living in the Middle East (Arab Spring) or techie/media geeks (SOPA/PIPA).
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Chad Ellis
United States
Brookline
Massachusetts
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bjlillo wrote: That's too bad. I was enjoying seeing two feminist organizations going at it.
Sort of the political equivalent of girl-on-girl porn, or more "The enemy of my enemy may be my friend, but watching two enemies fight while eating popcorn with my other friends is even better"? 
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Jarred
United States
University Place
Washington
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Chad_Ellis wrote: bjlillo wrote: That's too bad. I was enjoying seeing two feminist organizations going at it. Sort of the political equivalent of girl-on-girl porn, or more "The enemy of my enemy may be my friend, but watching two enemies fight while eating popcorn with my other friends is even better"?
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Harvester of Eyes.
United States
Louisville
Kentucky
My demeanor was meaner.
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Whoa! It reversed itself even before the first post decrying/celebrating its original decision appeared in this forum. I didn't even have time to discuss it with my lady friend with the pink license plate.
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Scott Russell
United States
Clarkston
Michigan
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My first thought was, "Why are charitable organizations who rely on donations giving money to other charitable organizations anyway?"
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DORGON
United States
Round Rock
Texas
Entertainment for those who don't think young & don't think old
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scribidinus wrote: Whoa! It reversed itself even before the first post decrying/celebrating its original decision appeared in this forum. I didn't even have time to discuss it with my lady friend with the pink license plate.
Let me tell you Pinterest was lit afire yesterday.
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Go-vangelist
United States
Denver
Colorado
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scribidinus wrote: Whoa! It reversed itself even before the first post decrying/celebrating its original decision appeared in this forum. I didn't even have time to discuss it with my lady friend with the pink license plate.
Here you go, better late than never:
Abortion is a monstrous practice, especially as a mere routine birth control method.
Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion provider, so anything that hinders them is good. Karma is taking too long, we need something more fast-acting.
I applauded Komen's first decision. Even if it wasn't made for political reasons, it still was the right thing to do.
[Warning: Non-politically correct although possibly leftist statement follows] We should also do much more as a society to help minority teenagers (and their families) since statistically they are responsible for most of the abortions.
The media also shares the blame, for bombarding our kids with sexually-charged images and lyrics.
Choice? If a woman is pregant she's already made her choice (excluding cases of rape of course) to have sex. Now it's time to own up to the consequences of her choice, and choose life over killing. If she's not willing to keep the baby, tons of people are waiting in line to adopt.
Truth stated, problem solved. You're welcome. Next?
;-)
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Rich Hussein Shipley
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
By some definitions, gaming is my religion
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tesuji wrote: Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion provider, so anything that hinders them is good.
Planned parenthood also tries to reduce unwanted pregnancies. If that fails, they provide a legal service so women aren't tempted to go to butchers. Abortions adds up to about 3% of their services.
Most pro-life people just want to moralize and feel good about themselves. If abortion is the worst thing imaginable, then doing anything to reduce the need for them should be the most important thing. Even if that means working with organizations like Planned Parenthood.
And reducing access to cancer screening for the poor to prove some political point is disgusting.
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Chad Ellis
United States
Brookline
Massachusetts
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qzhdad wrote: My first thought was, "Why are charitable organizations who rely on donations giving money to other charitable organizations anyway?"
Actually, I think that's both common and quite sensible.
Let's say you form a charity designed to promote the playing of strategy games, with a focus on kids. (I'm actually thinking about doing precisely this.) A number of people agree with your vision and donate money to your organization.
You then look for the best way to spend that money in support of the mission. You might well conclude that offering micro-grants to local PTO organizations (non-profits that depend on donations) in order to support game clubs at their schools was much more effective than trying to contact individual schools and set up the clubs yourself.
In this case, Planned Parenthood has a network of clinics in poor neighborhoods where access to care is limited. (They're certainly not the only one, but most of the others are non-profits as well.) An organization like Komen is a natural middle-entity between people who would like to donate money to help poor women get breast exams and information and the many non-profit health centers that serve those populations.
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Marc P
United States
Green Lake--Seattle
Washington
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tesuji wrote: scribidinus wrote: Whoa! It reversed itself even before the first post decrying/celebrating its original decision appeared in this forum. I didn't even have time to discuss it with my lady friend with the pink license plate. Here you go, better late than never: Abortion is a monstrous practice, especially as a mere routine birth control method. Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion provider, so anything that hinders them is good. Karma is taking too long, we need something more fast-acting. I applauded Komen's first decision. Even if it wasn't made for political reasons, it still was the right thing to do. [Warning: Non-politically correct although possibly leftist statement follows] We should also do much more as a society to help minority teenagers (and their families) since statistically they are responsible for most of the abortions. The media also shares the blame, for bombarding our kids with sexually-charged images and lyrics. Choice? If a woman is pregant she's already made her choice ( excluding cases of rape of course) to have sex. Now it's time to own up to the consequences of her choice, and choose life over killing. If she's not willing to keep the baby, tons of people are waiting in line to adopt. Truth stated, problem solved. You're welcome. Next? ;-)
What does that have to do with my sending money to Komen to fund mammograms and breast screens? The money that went to PP was solely earmarked for underprivileged, uninsured women to have access to such technologies. I liked that my money was supporting such endeavors, and I'm glad to hear that it will do so in the future.
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Chad Ellis
United States
Brookline
Massachusetts
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rshipley wrote: tesuji wrote: Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion provider, so anything that hinders them is good. Planned parenthood also tries to reduce unwanted pregnancies. If that fails, they provide a legal service so women aren't tempted to go to butchers. Abortions adds up to about 3% of their services.
I love Planned Parenthood, but man do I hate the 3% stat. I just don't think it's honest, and like so many other stats it gets repeated and repeated, without appropriate questioning.
That aside, what's fascinating to me is that pro-life organizations often attack Planned Parenthood on two contradictory fronts, both of which also happen to be wrong. One is that abortion is a hugely profitable business and that PP wants to increase the number of abortions since they make so much money off of it. The other is that attacking funding for things like breast screenings or birth control or STI testing is a good idea because since money is fungible any funds going to PP are really supporting their abortion activities.
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Harvester of Eyes.
United States
Louisville
Kentucky
My demeanor was meaner.
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As I understand it, the grants from Komen were for cancer screens, in particular breast cancer screenings. Again, to the best of my knowledge, Planned Parenthood is the major provider of such screenings for women who are equally at risk but without other resources for early diagnosis.
EDIT: My damn is job adding to my response time.
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Rich Hussein Shipley
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
By some definitions, gaming is my religion
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Chad_Ellis wrote: I love Planned Parenthood, but man do I hate the 3% stat. I just don't think it's honest, and like so many other stats it gets repeated and repeated, without appropriate questioning.
I was doing that from memory of some numbers I saw last night. 11 million "services", and 300,000 abortions. I agree that services are not well defined here, but further lookup finds 3 million people served each year, so it would be hard to get that number over 10%.
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DORGON
United States
Round Rock
Texas
Entertainment for those who don't think young & don't think old
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rshipley wrote: Chad_Ellis wrote: I love Planned Parenthood, but man do I hate the 3% stat. I just don't think it's honest, and like so many other stats it gets repeated and repeated, without appropriate questioning. I was doing that from memory of some numbers I saw last night. 11 million "services", and 300,000 abortions. I agree that services are not well defined here, but further lookup finds 3 million people served each year, so it would be hard to get that number over 10%.
Looks like that 3% number is correct, unless you think they are being dishonest in their #. And that would be odd for a heavily scrutinized organization to make up numbers without a funding sheet to prove otherwise. 10% of their clients come for abortions, but how much is an abortion? Compared to how much people pay for contraception. The pill isn't cheap ...month to month.
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Jeff Jones
United States
Round Rock
Texas
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bjlillo wrote: That's too bad. I was enjoying seeing two feminist organizations going at it.
Only in wingnuttia is not wanting women to die of cancer a "feminist" issue.
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Jeff Jones
United States
Round Rock
Texas
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rshipley wrote: tesuji wrote: Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion provider, so anything that hinders them is good. Planned parenthood also tries to reduce unwanted pregnancies. If that fails, they provide a legal service so women aren't tempted to go to butchers. Abortions adds up to about 3% of their services.
You really need to read up on your conservative logic. Yes, the vast majority of Planned Parenthood's services are to prevent unwanted pregnancy. That's the problem.
The Anti-Choice movement isn't about the babies no matter what they say. If it was then they would not oppose almost every single program designed to actually help said babies once they are born. It's not about the babies. It's about the women. It's about making sure women who dare to have sex outside of the religiously prescribed rules and regulations are punished for their actions. It's about making sure hussies have risks.
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Jeff Jones
United States
Round Rock
Texas
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bjlillo wrote: Kafka wrote: It's about making sure women who dare to have sex outside of the religiously prescribed rules and regulations are punished for their actions. It's about making sure hussies have risks. No, it's really not, but please feel free to assume the worst about your political opponents if it makes you feel better about yourself.
No need to assume. One just needs to look at the entirety of the voting record of the conservative bloc since Roe v. Wade.
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Clay
United States
Alabama
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tesuji wrote:
Choice? If a woman is pregant she's already made her choice (excluding cases of rape of course) to have sex. Now it's time to own up to the consequences of her choice, and choose life over killing. If she's not willing to keep the baby, tons of people are waiting in line to adopt.
Countering old arguments with equally old rebuttals because that's how I spend my time:
Having a baby is not a consequence of having sex. It's not even a consequence of getting pregnant. People play way, way too loosely with that word, it's cause and effect not a better sounding stand-in for "should" or "want." If you get pregnant the consequence is that you now have an additional organism gestating somewhere inside you (I think it's in the down-y bits). You now have a few more rounds worth of actions to take before that leads to much else, so you can do something like throw a worker on the Abortion space to enact the consequence of not having that thing anymore. Suddenly giving birth is no longer a consequence of your earlier actions, that chain of events has been averted.
A good way to rephrase the idea is that if I set my house on fire, the consequence isn't that my house burns down but rather that my house is now on fire. If no further action is taken it is fairly likely I'll be in a hotel for a little while but the burning wreckage is a consequence of "set house on fire" plus "standing around doing nothing for like an hour or so," the first event doesn't jump you straight to that conclusion.
Sorry, just a pet peeve of mine.
Edit: Botched quote tag.
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Chad Ellis
United States
Brookline
Massachusetts
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MWChapel wrote: rshipley wrote: Chad_Ellis wrote: I love Planned Parenthood, but man do I hate the 3% stat. I just don't think it's honest, and like so many other stats it gets repeated and repeated, without appropriate questioning. I was doing that from memory of some numbers I saw last night. 11 million "services", and 300,000 abortions. I agree that services are not well defined here, but further lookup finds 3 million people served each year, so it would be hard to get that number over 10%. , unless you think they are being dishonest in their #. And that would be odd for a heavily scrutinized organization to make up numbers without a funding sheet to prove otherwise. 10% of their clients come for abortions, but how much is an abortion? Compared to how much people pay for contraception. The pill isn't cheap ...month to month.
I don't think it's making up the numbers but in how they choose to count them. For example, the MA affiliate has a pills-by-mail program where you can buy a year (or X months) of pills and have new pills mailed to you each month. Is that one service or twelve? My guess is that the numbers in that fact sheet are "true" but are based on metrics that are chosen in order to present the picture that PP wants to present. Each abortion client at PPLM was offered birth control to take home with them. Is that a separate service? I'm sure it's counted as such.
The pill isn't cheap...but a year's supply of pills at PPLM costs less than a single abortion, so even assuming that year is one "service" and not "twelve" the financial side would tell a different picture. Moreover, most other services are much cheaper than an abortion and take far less time and resources.
Basically I think the 3% number is derived from a measurement system that is intended to downplay how significant abortion is as a part of Planned Parenthood's business and mission. As a former marketing guy I totally get why they made that call. I just don't think it accurately reflects the percentage of abortion in client time, resources, revenues or of importance to mission.
I don't think it's a lie, or even dishonest, per se. I just don't think it's honest, either.
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KNOWN GOOD
United States
St. Paul
Minnesota
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I really don't care about who Komen gives its money to. I'd rather see people realize the fact that breast cancer research is heavily over-funded and other cancers need research too.
Breast cancer is one of the most survivable deadly diseases because of massive research. Even if you want to look at women's health, heart disease needs far more attention than breast cancer.
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Go-vangelist
United States
Denver
Colorado
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rshipley wrote: Abortions adds up to about 3% of their services.
Meet Jared Loughner, the suspect in the Tucson shooting, who killed six people and left 14 others injured, including congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
We still call him a murderer, even though he's killed fewer than 3% of the people he's met.
Would it matter if he spent most of his time being a saint, counselling women about their health, etc.?
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Rich Hussein Shipley
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
By some definitions, gaming is my religion
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tesuji wrote: We still call him a murderer, even though he's killed fewer than 3% of the people he's met.
We call him a murderer because he committed the crime of murder. Just like those anti-abortion activists that have killed doctors that perform legal abortions.
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