It’s no secret that the founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Nancy Brinker, served as an ambassador under President George W. Bush. Nobody really faulted her for that role; her political persuasion was her own business. Everyone united easily under the umbrella of finding a cure for breast cancer.

Politics had nothing to do with the mission of finding a cure for breast cancer or providing breast health care to any woman anywhere  – until now.

I hope that all politicians and non-profit organizations are paying attention to what happened with Susan G. Komen for the Cure when they decided to politicize women’s breast health care by announcing they were going to discontinue funding breast care and education at Planned Parenthood.

It was a big mistake. Huge.

Karen Handel became Komen’s Vice President of Public Policy in April, 2011. She joined the organization after she lost her 2010 bid for Governor of Georgia. She was very vocal in her desire to defund Planned Parenthood then, and apparently this mission didn’t stop when she accepted her position at Komen.

Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest health care clinic for disadvantaged, uninsured and underinsured teen-aged girls and women. 97% of the services they provide include pap smears (a test for pre-cancerous and cancerous cells in the female reproductive system), STD testing, breast exams and education (including writing prescriptions for mammograms), birth control, prenatal care, counseling and cancer prevention vaccines. I think everyone will agree that that’s quite a lot of good stuff packed into that 97%.

The other 3% of Planned Parenthood’s services constitutes abortions and abortion-related counseling. Abortion is a legal medical procedure that is available at Planned Parenthood for women who are disadvantaged, uninsured or underinsured. Abortions are not funded with tax money or grants provided by Susan G. Komen. It’s important to point out that Planned Parenthood isn’t the only game in town; abortion is also offered at many other clinics and hospitals around the country for those who have insurance or who can otherwise afford it.

After 20 years of a happy and fruitful relationship regarding breast care, the folks at Susan G. Komen decided that they’d withdraw their annual $700,000 grant to Planned Parenthood, probably assuming that there’d be a slight backlash, but nothing too major. After all, who could blame them for withdrawing support from an organization that provides legal abortions to disadvantaged, uninsured and underinsured teen-aged girls and women? The problem was that their funding went directly to life-saving breast exams, mammograms and referrals to mammograms (for the clinics that don’t offer them onsite, as is the case with many doctor offices). Oh, and it also went to breast health education. Their funding had nothing to do with abortions at all – ever. It ONLY had to do with providing teen-aged girls and women breast health care and education.

Planned Parenthood stated that the grant provided by Susan G. Komen provided breast care for over 170,000 teen-aged girls and women. Planned Parenthood typically sees more than 700,000 patients annually for breast health care services. It became clear that Planned Parenthood would have to find the funds to make up the $700,000 loss in order to continue providing these breast care services. Well, that was first blush. Thousands of people, many of whom were women who had received services through Planned Parenthood at one time or another, were infuriated with Susan G. Komen for politicizing this in the first place. Komen surely didn’t anticipate that so many of their supporters would rally to Planned Parenthood.  In fact, many were so angry they withdrew their support from Komen and immediately donated to Planned Parenthood ON THE SPOT. Without warning, Planned Parenthood became the recipient of  a near $3 million windfall. Susan G. Komen immediately lost many long-time supporters, organizers and an untold amount of donations. Of course, they did receive donations from anti-Planned Parenthood people. But the worst part was, Komen alienated half of their support base by becoming political in the first place.

Brinker stated that the reason for withdrawing the grant was because they changed their grant policies, which now stated that they couldn’t provide grants to any organization that was under investigation. Florida Republican Congressman Cliff Stearns is seeking a financial audit from Planned Parenthood; meaning they are, “under investigation.” Planned Parenthood is often a target of right-wing politicians, all hoping to find a way to shut down this vital health care clinic that caters to the reproductive care of women. It’s a ridiculous claim at best. Of course, Komen made no mention of withdrawing their research grant from Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) for being under investigation for sexual assault charges perpetrated against numerous children over the course o many years, where officials aware of the situation but did nothing to stop it. Thus, funding would ONLY cease for 170,000 women per year who benefited from their grant at Planned Parenthood. Everyone else was safe! Whew!

A day later, in an interview with Andrea Mitchell, Brinker again reassured everyone that the decision to withdraw funds was not political at all. According to Brinker, “We’ve been providing breast health education for 30 years, and we just don’t want to do that anymore.”  Uh uh. They’re just tired of that education stuff. OMG!!! THEY DON’T WANT TO EDUCATE WOMEN ON BREAST HEALTH ANYMORE!!! That’s one of the craziest things I could have imagined hearing from a non-profit organization whose mission is to cure breast cancer. I mean, how will they even know who has breast cancer? How will women know how to perform self exams?  Or is “the cure” just for women who can afford it?

Oh, Brinker also informed Mitchell that Komen didn’t want to have “duplicitous” services within the same area. Many people do not realize that a woman cannot walk into a mammogram clinic and get a mammogram on the spot. She has to have a prescription written by a medical doctor. Therefore, many Planned Parenthood clinics offer duplicitous services, since all medical doctors in the area can write a prescription for a mammogram too.  As we all know, doctors are not required to provide services to women with limited means, but some will. You’ll have to find them on your own. I think. I guess. Surely Brinker wouldn’t forsake the low-income women in the US. I mean, right?

Planned Parenthood leader, Cecile Richards appeared in several interviews immediately after this story hit the airwaves, clearly an effort to reach out to Komen to rethink their decision so they would not have to turn away women who required breast screenings. She repeatedly praised Komen’s efforts in the fight against breast cancer and suggested that she believed the decision was the result of right-wing bullying against Komen. I agree. Komen’s message got muddled in this massive public relations disaster, but Planned Parenthood wasn’t fighting back with a big political message. They were fighting for women to have access to health care – breast health care.

I found this little nugget at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_G._Komen_for_the_Cure: “In the 2009-2010 fiscal year, ending March 31, 2010, Komen reported approximately US $400 million in earnings. Of this, $365 million (91.3 percent) came from contributions from the public, including donations, sponsorships, race entry fees, and contributed goods and services. Approximately $35 million (8.8 percent) came from interest and dividends and gains on investments.”

The sad reality is that $700,000 doesn’t even rack up to one percent of their annual earnings. They just don’t wanna help or educate low-income women who receive services from the only place where they can afford to receive them.

I guess they didn’t realize that many of these women, or their families or friends have contributed in some way to Komen, ran or organized the races, collected funds, etc. and they were not too happy about this. I guarantee that $365 million was not raised solely by right-wing anti-Planned Parenthood Republicans. What a stupid move!

With such intense public outage that continued for three straight days, Brinker announced that they would continue funding Planned Parenthood after all, with a message, “We’re sorry. Let’s figure out how to get back on the same team.”  Or something like that. Now they alienated the other half of their support base who had just rallied to their side days and moments before, all doing their happy anti-Planned Parenthood dance. Everyone was sure that they wouldn’t help anyone at Planned Parenthood anymore, so when the pendulum swung the other way,  they were outraged too – and they wanted a refund! It’s funny how I did not hear of a single leftist asking for her money back, but the right-wingers were all about the money. (I thought that deserved an honorable mention.  The refund requests actually made a Fox news headline!) Anyway, how dare a breast cancer organization continue funding breast cancer screenings, and, you know, help save lives of women. “How dare they?” ask the people who call themselves “pro-lifers.” Clearly a misnomer.

What a mess.

Some are calling for Brinker’s resignation over this debacle, a sad testament to the woman who began the organization named after and dedicated to her sister. I think she’ll be forgiven if she’s really sorry. Not everyone agrees. An overwhelming majority is calling for Handel’s resignation, and the demand is only growing. A recent article in the Huffington Post reveals inside information that Handel had intentionally drafted the new grant funding policy so that it would only affect Planned Parenthood, and so that it would appear as though the decision wasn’t political. The problem for Handel is that there are emails that the Huffington Post claims to have seen regarding her motivation and true intentions. The problem for Komen is their non-profit status: “Section 501(c)(3) organizations are subject to limits or absolute prohibitions on engaging in political activities.”

Handel’s political bias came through loud and clear when she retweeted this post shortly after Komen made their first announcement: “Just like a pro-abortion group to turn a cancer orgs decision into a political bomb to throw. Cry me a freaking river.”

Nearly all of the posts on Facebook claimed political foul. It was blatantly obvious. Even after Brinker’s initial annoucement, right-wing anti-Planned Parenthood people offererd their praise for not supporting those “baby killers”.  It got pretty nasty. There was never really a question that the decisions were politcally based, even though Brinker adamantly denied it in her videos. Her denial just added fuel to the flames.

When Komen finally reversed the decision, I thought it ironic that many right-wing anti-Planned Parenthood people claimed they gave into political pressure. The simple truth is that nobody made this more political than Komen and the anti-Planned Parenthood people. It gained a lot of momentum with Handel at the helm. She had no control over the path it took, which I’m sure she didn’t anticipate. At all. Komen was pressured into moving away from providing funding for women’s breast healthcare, and Handel was the primary instigator. That’s what started this controversy, plain and simple. Komen wasn’t funding abortion; they were funding breast health care and education. How did Brinker and Handel manage to get so far off the main path?

The reality is that every right wing whackjob who has politicized women’s breast health has done an insane amount of damage. Women need reproductive health care, and specific to this issue, they need breast health care – even if they can’t afford it. Thanks to Handel, Komen and the anti-Planned Parenthood people, the time came for women to make a stand against the ever-growing attacks on healthcare providers who perform abortions, regardless of the other services they provide. As shattering as Komen’s initial announcement was, the response they received was equally necessary. Planned Parenthood provides wonderful healthcare to women across this country, with very little of it being about abortions, and it’s high time everybody realize this.

Are you politicians and non-profits-with-a-political-agenda paying attention here?

Thanks to this controversy, Komen’s reputation may forever be damaged, and Planned Parenthood received nearly $3 million in donations in less than a week, changing the topic into something it never was. Until now, Komen has always been about finding a cure for breast cancer, for improved breast health. The right-wing anti-Planned Parenthood people who made breast health care an abortion issue  have set back women’s health care and research considerably. Komen’s support may never fully return, and Planned Parenthood doesn’t do research. I wonder how many lives will be lost over this.

It’s time to quit using women’s access to healthcare at Planned Parenthood as a political platform. If an organization with a wonderful goal of curing breast cancer can fall prey to this evil political hot topic,  you can be assured that the women (and men) in this country who have needed or support Planned Parenthood will rally together again. It’s time to remove womens healthcare from political grandstanding. Just ask Nancy Brinker or Karen Handel what they’ve just learned.

Politics and political persuasions have no business meddling in women’s access to healthcare.

Breast cancer kills women. Stick with the topic and everybody wins.