As someone who lives in a house surrounded by a bunch of pink-ribbon-branded Komen paraphernalia, I am beyond pissed about the Komen foundation’s decision to end a program that paid for 170,000 breast exams and 6,400 mammogram referrals. My sister-in-law died of breast cancer after an ugly 7-year ordeal, and during her fight and since then we’ve spent a fair amount of money and time, most of it through the Komen Foundation, to try to fight that awful disease. It’s a tragedy and waste that Komen chose to elevate some politically-minded hack to a position where she would be able to pursue an anti-Planned Parenthood agenda instead of doing what the Komen Foundation was founded to do: fight breast cancer. There is no immediate replacement for Planned Parenthood’s sliding-scale services in the areas it serves. So it is no exaggeration to say that, unless the Komen funding is replaced, more women will die of breast cancer because of this decision.
That said, I’m confident that Komen’s funding will be replaced, and also that Komen will be a pale pink shadow of its former self unless it reverses this stupid decision and fires the people responsible. Check out list after list after list of Komen’s corporate sponsors. Do you think New Balance, Ford and Georgia-Pacific signed on for a public fight over Planned Parenthood? When Yoplait put a pink lid on its yogurt, did they do it to make it easier to boycott their products? Because that’s what’s going to happen. Unlike most boycotts, it’s easy to figure out which products you shouldn’t buy: anything that displays a pink ribbon with the Komen name.
(John and ABL have already posted about this if you’re wondering what I’m talking about.)
JPL
Georgia-Pacific is owned by the Koch brothers so I doubt they’re concerned. After all Planned Parenthood services the poor and needy. They are the dispensable crowd.
c u n d gulag
So, Planned Parenthood loses money because of some Dominionist VP loon, who won’t fund ‘saving the ta-tas (which, I believe is a different Foundation from Kamen – but I’m not sure), because PP helps women who might want “choice?”
As for this bullshit about not being able to donate if an organization is under investigation at any level, and since The US House of Representatives, as well as other more local government bodies, as someone (NY State Appeals Judge Solomon Wachler?) once said of a prosecutor, “could indict a ham sandwich,” is this the latest ploy by the right to limit donations to organizations they don’t agree with?
Because all they’d have to do then is search for the organizations that donate to causes they don’t like, and find one that won’t give money to organizations under investigation or indictment, and bleed them to death financially?
And what’s a better alternative to Planned Parenthood?
Unplanned Parenthood?
“Whoops, You’re Going To Be A PARENT?!?!”
Schlemizel
@JPL:
It seems silly, you would think they would want at least minimally healthy drones.
First they destroy the public safety net, I get that they don’t want to pay a dime in taxes unless they get a buck back, now they are destroying the private safety net which does not cost them a dime. These are some sick, deluded fucks.
Felinious Wench
My money will be going to Planned Parenthood now. I’ve been a huge supporter of Komen, but to me, this is walking away from poor women. It’s caving to political pressure at the expense of the women they’re supposed to serve. And my money is for women, not the Komen Foundation.
Elizabelle
Bad, bad behavior.
Hope they get a lot of blowback; waiting to see how this plays out.
Egg Berry
@Schlemizel:
Ask the triangle shirt waist factory girls about that. or the coal miners. or the tyson chicken workers. or … pretty much any group of drones.
Some Guy
Here, here.
It is very common among more hard line anti-abortion types to say that women should risk death rather than abort. What this decision shows is that women generally should risk death because some other women have abortions. They no doubt see this as using “leverage” but it is more aptly seen as collective punishment. It is of a piece with bombing clinics and “collateral damage” in a culture war.
Sick, sick fucks.
Schlemizel
@Egg Berry:
You’re right
BTW – I read a story about Foxconn announcing they are adding another 100,000 workers – the story said the lines outside to apply stretched for blocks. we really are all fucked aren’t we?
FridayNext
That’s a big ass list of sponsors. If I boycotted them all I’d be naked and starving. It’d be easier to make a list of who DOESN’T sponsor SGK. I’m normally behind a good righteous boycott, but I’m just saying’. They may have safety in numbers this time.
techno
I HOPE this puts that Komen scam out of business. Here in Minnesota, they are running ads for some fund-raiser that suggests that there is a link between walking 60 miles in three days and a cure for breast cancer. It talks about how the sacrifice of it all will lead to a tearfully joyous outcome. It doesn’t suggest actually whipping ones own body like the medieval pilgrims, but then, this ad campaign isn’t over.
I once had a conversation with my mother about some quack “cures” a friend was trying for his wife who was dying of the complications from breast cancer. She patted the back of my hand and said, “Be kind, people do strange things when the subject is cancer.” So I am kind around the Koman enthusiasts. But I detest the Koman scamsters for preying on these desperate people.
mistermix
@FridayNext: Big-time Komen sponsors bring out special products to support Komen, such as the Yoplait yogurt with the pink lid. There are pink-ribbon-branded jeans, shoes, food, etc. You don’t need to boycott them all, just avoid the ones with the pink ribbon. It’s a very selective and potentially effective boycott, enabled by Komen’s branding strategy.
Skepticat
I’m a petty bitch, and although I know that something like my not buying a few cups of yogurt makes no discernible difference to a massive bottom line, at least it makes me feel better when I write a pointed explanation to companies about why I’m withholding my seventy or eighty cents. Guess I’ll be lashing the Komen Foundation with my wet noodle as well.
kay
Because what angry individual donors and volunteers want is corporate-speak pablum, delivered by way of a “statement”.
Let’s hope they don’t get better at this :)
Mudge
One sad aspect of this, if Komen doesn’t reverse itself, is that Komen becomes a poster child for forced pregnancy types (aka Republicans) to self-righteously tout their charitible chops. Boycotters of Komen will be characterized as not caring about women’s health. You know the Republican noise machine will win that battle, and you know sponsors will be told by the plutocrats not to withdraw their sponsorship. I can hear Romney saying he supports Komen and the fight to find a cure for breast cancer, and liberals don’t. The base will eat it up. And Obama will likely say nothing one way or the other.
JCT
@FridayNext: Nothing wrong with going cold turkey on a few and pulling back the rest. And I’m with Felonious Wench, I lost an Aunt to breast CA and I have donated to them every year since. No more, this year I will make the effort to snail-mail them a letter explaining why my donation went to PP instead.
This is a terrible, thoughtless, decision and this all-out attack on PP is turning into one of the GOPs big success stories. Disgusting. Why are people such mind less sheep to pursue such a heartless and idiotic agenda?
jibeaux
The crazy thing is it shouldn’t even really matter if you’re opposed to abortion. There is no large scale competition for the services PP provides to women. None. You’ll note that they didn’t say “we’ve decided to give the money to X now instead of PP, because they are a large-scale provider of health services to women in need but they don’t perform abortions.” That’s because there is no X. There is no replacement for what PP does. To defund them because of resistance to what they do, legally, with completely separate funds, is idiotic. And I like Kay’s formulation of “it’s like charity malpractice.” I have a friend who’s been agitating against them for years, but many more who have done the walks and bought the products. I know someone with a damn pink cancer awareness stand mixer. (Now that was some good corporate thinking — buy this $300 stand mixer, and we’ll give $.50 to the Komen Foundation!) Now half the country is going to see them like my first friend does.
WereBear
Komen always seemed more about the money; they were awfully cozy with big corporations. And I believe they pay very well. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; until they pull this kind of thing.
And we should boycott Georgia Pacific on Koch Brother principles. I do.
kay
This is the person they put on the board:
I actually didn’t know conservatives opposed the Healthy Babies programs. The Healthy Babies approach, generally (in my experience) is a big success, particularly for teenage mothers. I guess they’re collateral damage in the war on liberals.
Good to know.
OzoneR
Komen founder Nancy Brinker was Ambassador to Hungary and Chief of Protocol during the Bush Administration.
I’m surprise it took this long for their politics to infiltrate.
mistermix
@Mudge: They can make that kind of noise, but there are many other breast cancer charities, as well as the American Cancer society, so that noise is going to be short-term while the pink ribbon sponsors scramble to get out of their contracts with Komen and switch to different charities.
My guess is that if Komen doesn’t back down, some new type of pink ribbon will be created that looks a hell of a lot different from the current one, so boycotters will know which one to buy.
kay
@jibeaux:
It’s absolutely insane. Conservatives are systematically destroying an existing clinic network, in this country, where millions of people have no access to health care at all.
Joseph Nobles
@kay: So that they can build one up that doesn’t provide abortion, preferably one that is administered by nuns.
Mardam
My sister-in-law and my grandmother died of breast cancer. I even worked in breast cancer research for years. I did work for Komen. I was part of their granting process, and proudly wore a pink Komen tie to meetings.
No longer. No walking in the annual walks. This will come back to haunt them, as I’m not alone.
lol
@Joseph Nobles:
Actually, they’ll just save themselves the money and not build a replacement.
Maude
@kay:
We had a local PP and it has been gone for several years. The county is Republican and they got rid of it.
The goal is for the religicos to take down Roe v Wade step by step.
Then onto birth control. Of course, if birth control becomes hard to get, along the way, so much the better.
johio
I think blaming this on their new VP is probably unfair. Don’t get me wrong, she sounds like a typical right wing fanatic “let a thousand women die if it prevents one abortion.” But if you ran an organization devoted to women’s healrh, why would you ever hire a nitwit like that? Sounds like there is more than one anti abortion fanatic at that organization.
As the right wing continues its attempt to destroy another organization dedicated to helping those the overlords don’t approve of.
Mardam
@techno: The money raised in communities by Komen not only goes to research, but lots of it stays in the community to provide things like screenings, etc. I worked for them. They really did a good job of making breast cancer awareness a cause celbre.
This is a horrible decision. But they do good work. Too bad. They’ll be able to afford lots less in the future, I’m sure.
kay
@Joseph Nobles:
I don’t think they will. I think they’ll shuttle poor women to for-profit providers.
We have a fake clinic here, run by anti-abortion folks. It advertises as a “clinic” so people (understandably) think they provide health care services, but they don’t. They provide religious instruction.
I deal with teenagers in my work, and I used to approach it carefully when they’d ask me what to do or where to go, but I don’t have time for careful political phrasing and they’re not big on nuance, so now I just tell them “that’s not a real clinic”. I’ve been in there. That’s a true statement. It’s not a “clinic” in any ordinary sense of the word.
I think it’s amazingly deceptive and deeply cynical to trick them, so I’m as blunt as I can possibly be.
Keith G
Its time for personal advocacy. Get 50 people to tell 50 people. Make as many of those contacts as you can in person. Even if the buzz doesn’t lead directly to change, some money will be diverted to better organizations.
OzoneR
@johio:
the organization’s founder for one.
Anya
@mistermix: I believe the Pink Ribbon is trademarked for Komen. They have to come up with another color.
Again, I want to pimp Pink Ribbon Inc. – a documentary about “cause marketing.” It looks at the corporatization of breast cancer.
WereBear
To quote Seinfeld’s dad: “I don’t like the sound of that!”
jibeaux
I bought some Kroger brand yogurt last night, so I went ahead and popped over to the Yoplait website and let them know why I didn’t buy my usual brand, Yoplait. (Which is true, that or Oikos. That Chobani stuff tastes like chalk, imo.) The contact form seemed to be geared a lot more towards problems with the quality of the product, but I’m guessing if they don’t have a system in place yet for routing boycott emails, they will soon!
techno
@Mardam:
Koman does good work?? When you start out by lying to people, when much of your fund-raising goes to pay the bloated salaries of the fund-raisers, when you prey on fears and use the sick to make yourselves rich, there isn’t a lot you can do to justify your existence after that.
Jus’ sayin’
JGabriel
Skepticat:
Those wet noodles begin to sting when you’re being lashed by a few million of them simultaneously.
.
Rhoda
If anyone is looking to go elsewhere with the support they’ve given to SJK, a friend sent me this link to SHARE. I’ve always donated to Komen before; but she said they were incredibly supportive of her mother and vouched for them. So, there are other options than Komen. Beyond this PP thing I’ve been irked at how litigious they’ve become and so incredibly corporate. I feel like they’ve lost sight of what matters; the survivors and the fight for a cure. That they would cut off funding and the possibility of saving lives just to make a political point confirms that. I’m just beyond disgusted.
4tehlulz
I can’t say I agree that Komen just committed suicide. They’re practically the United Way of breast cancer awareness, so large and such a huge “market share” of breast cancer charity that they can survive almost anything.
Percysowner
@Joseph Nobles:
One run by nuns might be better than you think. My daughter went to an all girls Catholic School, because they were one of the best schools available. They would give kids the ability to not wear a uniform for a day if they joined established clubs. When the Right to Life Club had their fund raiser, the non-Catholic parents talked to the principal and she decided that it was unfair to give privileges to a club that was only in line with Catholic religious views.
When it came to pregnancy and birth control in health class, the teacher explained that since this was a Catholic institution, she could not talk about anything other than “natural family planning” in class, but she did have a list of websites available AFTER class if anyone wanted to investigate on their own time. She also pointed out that although birth control was a sin in the eyes of the church, so was non-marital sex and that if one of her students was going to sin, she preferred they sin safely.
Most of the nuns I met at my daughter’s school were frankly quite cool and would have dumped the ban on BC in a heartbeat. Abortion, I’m not sure about.
rikryah
done with them. will throw all their mail in the garbage
Joseph Nobles
@lol: Actually they won’t have to build it from scratch. It’s already there in every Catholic and Baptist hospital from sea to shining sea.
@Percysowner: I don’t mean to kick those who worked in silence to help those in need, certainly. That would be like kicking the Underground Railroad for the good it did. But neither do I want a world where the Underground Railroad was necessary.
grandpa john
@kay: Of course it’s insane. but all our ranting won’t change much until the sheeple we call the american public arouse themselves to what is going on. yes we need to keep trying to inform and educate them but ultimately They are the ones who are going to have to wake up and demand changes and they have the power to do so , Look at Wisconsin and Ohio. an enraged population can take back their governments, its called the power of the voting booth, but they can’t do it setting at home on their asses instead of making their voices public and by not voting.
Legalize
Well, there’s one 5k I can cross of my list. I’ll just send the registration fee to PP instead.
JGabriel
techno:
About 9% goes to fund-raisers and about 11% goes to administration. That’s a little high on both counts — Komen is certainly no paradigm of charitable efficiency — but it’s still within the realm of what’s considered a “good” charity.
Generally, you want to see a charity use 20% or less for overhead, and Komen seems to, just barely, fit within that criteria. The major qualm here is that one would think a charity of Komen’s size, over $330 million collected in 2009 alone, would scale better — such that, say, only 10% or so would go to overhead.
.
bystander
TBogg has a great “protest” suggestion.
Details.
kay
@grandpa john:
Well, okay, but in a broader sense, what does PP want to talk about?
How they provide breast cancer screening to poor women.
So for that purpose I think branded-pink-ribbon creating this controversy is good for Planned Parenthood.
grandpa john
@kay: Well yes and in this case where they have callously overstepped their bounds the appropriate backlash seems to be occurring, creating an excellent teaching opportunity. this is an example of what I was referring to in which an aroused public voices their opinion
maurinsky
I figured Komen lost the plot big time when they started suing other non-profits who were trying to raise money to help fight cancer.
I’ve never bought anything with a pink ribbon, and I’m pretty glad about that today.
Cacti
Give the Komen foundation a “pink-slip”.
Halteclere
This decision completely changes the Komen radio ad where the tearful woman wails “I never had a choice about losing my mother!”
4tehlulz
@Halteclere: It’s a cancer, not a choice.
grandpa john
around here where I live in SC the big fund raising thing is Called “Relay for Life which is associated with the American Cancer Society
Halteclere
4tehlulz: My wife and I dread fundraiser month when the Komen adds saturate the radio airwaves with women complaining about not having the choice or say-so, or that they are doing the walk for a loved-one. The over-the-top whiny-ness especially grates on my wife’s nerves.
RalfW
If you’re on twitter, let @YoplaitYogurt know how you feel. I just did.
burnspbesq
The V and Kay Yow Foundations are viable alternatives if you want to continue to support organizations that fund cancer research.
The V Foundation has an endowment (big initial contributions by ESPN and some big-name college basketball coaches), the income from which funds its operating budget, so substantially all donated funds go out the door as research grants.
M. Gillett
My wife did one Bike ride for the cure, and their rules were insane, to the point where if you didn’t raise the set amount of money for your goal, you would have to A) not ride, or B) Pay the balance out of your own pocket and then ride. They didn’t want the cash if you didn’t have the full amount! We nicknamed them the “Cancer Nazis”, and urged the National Cancer society to start rides. We donate to NCS now…
patroclus
I just called the Komen Foundation and left a message on their media line. I started out politely but got angrier as I went along. I hope they get the message that their recent actions have destroyed their brand and ended all chances of getting my participation in any of their activities ever again.
bemused
I called two women (a neighbor and a relative) who are planning to do a Komen 3 day this summer and recently requested donations from us alerting them to the AP/Wapo article. I told them that I was very shocked and disturbed by Komen’s decision. I said this goes against their own supposed mission, I’m extremely upset by the assault on PP and women’s health funding in general. I said I would be watching to see how this plays out and hoping Komen would come to their senses and reverse this horrible decision and I would be donating to PP instead for now.
Now I’m probably not one of their favorite persons. Both said Komen does such important and good work on breast cancer and one (after reading the article) said she could understand Komen’s position on suspending grants if an organization was under investigation and I replied that there is something odd about the criteria being “recently” adopted. I think she pretty much skimmed a lot of telling info in that article. It’s the same old story. People don’t delve very deeply into issues and look closely at what and who is behind major changes. The devil is always in the details. I don’t think they understand my stance or the big picture. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if they think I am being over the top because “Komen does such important work on breast cancer”.
bemused
@maurinsky:
Seriously?
jibeaux
@bemused: It’s also “under investigation” by one whackadoodle dude who is providing cover for this kind of thing so Komen doesn’t have to say the word abortion.
dmsilev
@jibeaux: So, what would happen if some grandstanding Senator decided to open an investigation of the Komen Foundation itself? Just for shits and giggles, of course. Would they cut off their own budget?
burnspbesq
Could this be a blessing in disguise for PP?
The press release says that it lost “more than a half million” in grants from SGK. I assume that if they had lost more than a million they would have said “more than a million” in the press release. If you make that assumption, it logically follows that 500k<x<1MM.
Suppose the lost grant was 800k. I'd venture to say that there are substantially more than 40k people sufficiently steamed about this to send $20 to PP. I know I am.
philpm
I did find this in the article on MSNBC about Komen cutting their funding:
Richards said Planned Parenthood is intent on raising funds quickly to replace the lost grants so that women in need do not go without breast-screening services. Already, the family foundation of Dallas oilman/philanthropist Lee Fikes and his wife, Amy, has donated $250,000 for this purpose, Planned Parenthood said.
So it looks like people are already stepping up to cover this, which is awesome. SGKF has really screwed themselves on this one.
Pongo
They’ve politicized their mission and donors don’t like that. People give money to Komen because they care about breast cancer, not because they care about the political/religious convictions of SBKs leadership.
As someone working in the nonprofit sector I’ve marveled at the shitty governance of this huge organization for years. Nonprofit boards have a fiduciary duty to anticipate and mitigate threats to their mission. Years ago, SBK started suing everyone in sight for using the term ‘the cure’ or the color pink. It was a PR nightmare for them, as they came across as the thin-skinned bullies that they are. As everyone debated the wisdom/legality of redirecting donated funds for breast cancer research into a series of frivolous lawsuits issue, I was amazed that not more attention went to the clear failure of governance that this type of behavior revealed. It doesn’t take a lot of intelligence to realize that this was potentially very damaging to their reputation, yet no one on their board stepped up to stop it.
Now this. And, unlike most nonprofits, SBK PAYS their governing board (very questionable practice in nonprofit world and possibly illegal, depending on where you are incorporated). What are they paying for? They appear to have a group that is asleep at the wheel and either too sloth-like to care or too cowed by a few politically motivated blowhards to do the job they are legally required to do. They should dismiss the entire governing board and any employees who serve as their toadies, apologize publicly for losing sight of their mission and promise to remain politically neutral (as required by their 501c3 designation) in the future.
Agree with mistermix that boycotting their partners is the best way to change their behavior. I would just suggest donating to the cause through another venue, like the Breast Cancer Research Fund (www.nationalbreastcancer.org–note, SBK lost their suit to try to make this group lose their pink branding!). People suffering from breast cancer shouldn’t be penalized because the SBK folks are a bunch of fucknuts.
burnspbesq
Die, stinking WordPress. It eated my equation because it sees less-than signs as the beginning of an HTML tag.
What I meant to say was that the lost grant money is probably between 500k and a mil.
bemused
@jibeaux:
Rep Stearns requested more than a decade’s worth of PP documents for his investigation/persecution. Suspicious me wonders if the goal is to find more donor names for anti-choice groups to harass.
PurpleGirl
@bemused: Yes, Komen has trademarked the term “for the cure” and has sued other non-profits who use the term in their own funding campaigns. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had tried (or thought to try) to patent “the race for” concept, either.
beltane
The sad thing is that if we had a decent, equitable health care system in this country none of this would matter at all.
gumbo
I called my local Komen affiliate yesterday and left a message telling them that I would no longer be donating time or money to their organization. The message on their machine said they couldn’t answer calls because they were in a staff meeting. So my guess is either they were getting inundated with calls from people like me and just turned on their machine, or they really were in a staff meeting trying to figure out how to deal with the national organization’s HUGE mistake.
Pongo
@maurinsky:
Thank you for bringing this up! I have colleagues who got mired in their frivolous lawsuit-apallooza and it just never got the public attention it deserved (I posted a bit more about this below). They’re corporate assholes–always have been, always will be.
The problem is the strength of their partners and especially their media partners. No medial outlet wants to expose the bad behavior of an org they have been supporting and pushing for years because it will make them look like idiots. As a result, public really doesn’t understand the nature of the org they are donating to.
PurpleGirl
Just for giggle value: I went to the Foundation Center web site to find out more about the Komen Foundation’s structure and maybe spend some time reading their IRS Form 990 (tax return). The Foundation Center site is apparently swapped right now — I got an error message about the request having timed out — so I’d say a lot of people are doing the same thing and trying to get the 990 by way of the Foundation Center’s “foundation finder” service.
burnspbesq
@Pongo:
“to remain politically neutral (as required by their 501c3 designation) in the future.”
Umm, not exactly. What the Code actually says is that 501(c)(3) orgs can’t “engage in propaganda” (whatever that means), attempt to influence legislation, or participate in election campaigns. What SGK has done is despicable, and they have 99 problems, but the IRS probably isn’t one of them.
beltane
Amanda Marcotte has a good post up about this: http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/reproductive-health-care-is-the-21st-century-version-of-witchcraft
bemused
@PurpleGirl:
I guess I wasn’t paying attention but that sure isn’t my idea of how an organization like that should operate. I’ve donated to PP but never to Komen. This has definitely put a big old spotlight on Komen and their practices. One would think they would have been concerned about the inevitable backlash. Kay’s term “charity malpractice” fits perfectly. This seems like another ‘too big to fail’ group that feels answerable to nobody but itself.
Mike E
@4tehlulz:
Too big to fail, yet so full of it. @$$holes.
Decades ago I delivered pie for the ‘Nos, and donated my last two paychecks to PP to sorta make amends for my satanic association. Now, I herd humans at the local corporately sponsored concert hall, along side breast cancer survivors, and I ripped off my pink ribbon and told them why. My mom and sis had the disease, so my heart is right there, but they didn’t raise me to make ridiculously harmful choices like this. I’m livid.
Mike E
@burnspbesq: 501©(4) is (or was?) a spin off branch used by c3 orgs to “raise awareness” and to give them a sorta plausible deny-ability to avoid any potential fallout. I worked at one for over a decade, but tax laws might be different now.
kay
@grandpa john:
The facts are that Democrats in Congress successfully protected PP funding. President Obama (probably, I’m guessing) deliberately leaked his “off the table” statement to Boehner. HHS is battling to pull federal funds from states that defund PP.
I just don’t want to hand them wins they haven’t won yet. I recognize they win sometimes. I recognize that can be dispiriting. I just feel as if rank and file Democrats overstate their success when they win rhetorical or media battles, which is nice for them. We’re always on defense. There’s a practical reason for that, they’re the wrecking crew, and liberals and Democrats created all these instituions and programs, but we don’t have to approach the whole thing defensively.
It sometimes seems to me as if both sides (seemingly) agree on how smart they are :)
Violet
Doctor/researcher friends of mine are not fans of Komen. They say they don’t do nearly as good a job as other organizations. They haven’t participated in or donated to Komen activities for years. I’ve followed their lead and haven’t either. This sort of thing doesn’t surprised me based on what I’ve heard previously.
Count me in for a significant donation to Planned Parenthood.
Mnemosyne
There are plenty of local breast cancer organizations you can donate towards. They’re mostly focused on helping patients directly rather than research, but that’s valuable too. Our local one is Bowling for Boobies, and they now have organizations in Houston and Philadelphia.
And I’ll be going on the pink ribbon boycott this year. I’ll tell my boss as well — her sister died of breast cancer, and she will be PISSED to hear about Komen playing politics with women’s health.
Gust Avrakotos
Jesus titty fucking christ on a stick mistermix. Do your fucking homework. It was a fucking birther/anti-abortion nutjob than now helps run the organization that is responsible for this.
At least try spend 5minutes researching before trying to get your blog post quota in for the week.
Jilli
Let the right wingers support Komen, I’ll send my donations directly to PP. I’m a current breast cancer patient and there’s not a minute that goes by that my doesn’t heart bleed for those less fortunate than I am. I’m lucky, I had insurance and access to routine healthcare, and it was still a pretty traumatizing situation – I can’t imagine what it’s like to have very limited to zero options.
waratah
I will be adding my support to boycotting the pink ribbon in support of Planned Parenthood.
My daughter is not going to be happy to throw away her pink shopping bags but I think she will understand when I explain why.
Dave
Certainly a dick move by Komen, but, their whole model is essentially for-profit charity. “Consumerist solutions to social problems,” that sort of thing. I mean, all those corporate sponsors only shell out 500k? Meh. Someone somewhere can do better.
Gust Avrakotos
Why the fuck are you posting tweets from that firebagger Joan Walsh? She’s just another flatulante attention seeker professional whiner that Obama isn’t farting out enough rainbows for her.
Egg Berry
I’m thinking there’s a headline involving “Komen Noodles ” that would work here somewhere .
mistermix
@Gust Avrakotos:
That’s a reference to Karen Handel. Do your fucking homework. Read the fucking article.
SBJules
A check will go out to PP today. I was a patient escort back in the 90s during the times of big protests and break-ins at PP. Shame, shame on Komen. They(Komen) were briefly headquartered in my town, but were so self-important they did not make friends and left.
slag
@Pongo: @burnspbesq: For clarity’s sake:
Yutsano
@mistermix: It’s Derf. Ignore it.
dedc79
Not really much to add to what commenters have already noted. I do think it’s important that we stop defending parenthood by minimizing the amount of its resources that go to abortion services. I don’t care if 95% of its resources go to abortion services, I’d still support them. Let’s not treat the availability of abortion services as something that needs to be minimized or swept under the rug. It’s a constitutionally protected right, it’s a legal procedure, and we shouldn’t act like we’re ashamed about it.
Carl Nyberg
I just contacted General Mills about Yoplait. It is a product I formerly used and can go without until the Komen decision is reversed.
honus
@c u n d gulag: Sol Wachtler, 7 year man from my W&L. On his way to the supremes until an unfortunate stalking incident.
Mnemosyne
@dedc79:
Hmm. I would present it a slightly different way: Planned Parenthood provides the full range of women’s health services, and you can’t cut out one specific service that people find “icky” and still give the best healthcare possible. Abortion is a necessary procedure and PP would be harming the health of their patients if they refused to do it. Cancer screenings, contraception, well-baby care, menopause care and, yes, access to abortion if needed are all necessary components.
But, then, I’m also of the “root canal” view of abortion: no one wants to have one, and it’s better to avoid the need for one in the first place, but sometimes abortion is necessary to prevent even bigger problems down the road.
Steve
@dedc79: Yeah, but if PP did 95% abortions, I wouldn’t be surprised if their only support was from pro-choice people. The reason we emphasize the real numbers is so we can argue that people should support their work irrespective of abortion politics.
Grover Gardner
@4tehlulz:
I dunno. Think Bon Vivant Vichyssoise. Big organizations have been brought down by less. If pink ribbons start disappearing off products in the grocery stores, they’ve got a problem. Their major sponsors do NOT want to get mixed up in this. And all it takes is one marathon in a liberal community where three surrender wives and a handful of tri-corn sporting old dudes show up, and their image will totally tank.
burnspbesq
@Gust Avrakotos:
Dick, if you don’t like the way Cole runs his blog, you’re under no obligation to keep visiting. Go start your own.
burnspbesq
@honus:
Everyone’s mileage varies, but one of the happiest days of my life was the day I put Lexington in the rear-view mirror after a nightmarish freshman year.
dedc79
@Mnemosyne: Fair point. I still think that it’s ceding too much ground to treat the abortion component as a kind of necessary evil.
@Steve: I recognize the need to counter various lies spread by the likes of Senator Kyle, that have convinced some that all PP does is abort fetuses. I’d like to see these lies countered for the reason you provide, but I also think it’s a mistake to be defensive about providing women with the option of an abortion
Grover Gardner
I’ve love to be a fly on the wall in some corporate PR departments right about now. It’s like the host of Antiques Roadshow went bonkers and smeared sh*t all over a Chippendale tallboy, and some guy at Subaru is thinking, “Oh, f*ck!”
Gust Avrakotos
@burnspbesq: Or not. As you said it’s up to me my little loyal groupie. Thanks for caring.
Rita R.
@Anya:
I put the “Pink Ribbon Inc.” documentary trailer up on my Facebook page and will be sending a donation to Planned Parenthood.
Maybe we should see actions like that of SGK as helpful, since it makes clearer to all those whose eyes have yet to be opened how forced birthers (much more apt than “anti-choice” or the laughable “pro-life”) put the value of fetuses or even days- or hours-old dividing cells above that of women.
It’s not even enough anymore that pregnant women who don’t want to be have to suffer. Now women who are not pregnant and have no intention of having an abortion, but who do have breast cancer need to suffer — and die — too.
John D
@burnspbesq: That happens on any blog that interprets HTML. Use ∧amp;lt; instead of the sign so that it displays the character you want instead of reading it as the start if a tag.
John D
That’s &lt;. FYWP.
Gust Avrakotos
@mistermix: That’s what it says now. What did it say before you edited it? Trying to pull a fast one? So not only are you a pathetic blogger but a weasel as well.
blondie
When your mission is supposedly women’s health, and you take an action that will lead to more women dying, Pink* Stinks!
(apologies to Pink, the rock star)
Gust Avrakotos
@blondie: Pink slips for Komen.
artem1s
@Pongo:
good points all. in general Komen does absolutely NOTHING to fight or cure cancer. they are only a pass-through organization that channels donations to researchers and clinics. They exist only to raise money. This is true of many of the disease group charities; not at all unique to them. But it is why I always tell my friends to donate directly to 501s that are DOING the work they want to support. And I never give money to organizations that hire for profit phone banks to do their calling. It’s harder to do the research to find the organizations that are actually engaged in the research but generally you get way more bang for the buck once you do.
Mike E
@Mnemosyne:
I keep the coathanger view of abortion in mind when I think of orgs like PP, so I don’t care about anyone’s discomfort with a safe and legal procedure. No offense.
WereBear
@Mike E: Nobody in their right mind wants one; at least, that is how I viewed the “root canal” comment. It’s just that sometimes, they are necessary.
RalfW
@Mike E:
Pretty much this. When I saw “Danger to Dignity: The Fight for Safe Abortion” I got clear on the issue and on Planned Parenthood. If you take away safe and legal abortion, you get unsafe and illegal abortion.
Yes, there would probably be somewhat fewer abortions, mostly because lower income women and women w/o health insurance wouldn’t be able to afford to go to the pro-choice states.
But there would be a surge in life-endangering back-alley abortions. The film was incredibly hard to watch at times.
Meanwhile, wealthy women, including Catholics and evangelicals, can go off to a short vacation out of state and have a safe and legal procedure that their families and churches need never know about. That was the deal before Roe v. Wade: plausible deniability for the rich, and more babies or awful procedures or death from complications for the poor.
That’s where the Talibangelicals want to take us, in concert with the rich who use them for right-wing electoral gain while retaining private insurance and private access.
Pococurante
The previous CEO was paid just under $500k/yr.
That pays for a lot of exams.
Pococurante
@burnspbesq:
Yup. I just went in for monthly donations.
I’m not proud of myself – should have done this years ago.
Steve in the ATL
@honus:
I thought I was the only liberal from W&L! Good to see you here.
Mnemosyne
@dedc79:
Well, it’s a “necessary evil” in the sense that a root canal is a necessary evil — no one wants to have to have one, but sometimes it’s needed. I do think that reducing the number of abortions through education and contraception is valuable not because abortion is some kind of moral evil, but because an abortion is minor surgery, and medically it’s always better to avoid surgery if you can.
@Mike E:
My position is that there’s no more reason for someone to be more uncomfortable with an abortion than they are with a root canal. Does the person arguing against you think that only “moral” people who really, really need one should be allowed to get a root canal and everyone else should have to pull the tooth out at home? Should the dentist give each patient a thorough quiz to make sure they weren’t eating too many sugary foods or not flossing before s/he will agree to do the root canal? Should “clinics” be set up to show scary films of root canals gone wrong to talk people out of getting them? Or should it be recognized that, hey, sometimes things go wrong and people need root canals?
I think that comparing a root canal and an abortion normalizes abortion as a healthcare procedure and puts it at the same level as other necessary healthcare rather than making it this big, scary procedure that has to be treated differently than other healthcare decisions.
tamied
When I read about this, I went to the PP website and donated 50 dollars and then directly to the Komen website and told them I did it because they dumped them. Bastards.
Bubblegum Tate
@Violet:
I did not know this–very interesting. Most of my awareness of Komen comes from the fact that my mom, a breast cancer survivor, does the Walk for the Cure thing every year. But to hear her talk about it, it’s more about the solidarity for her than it is the fundraising, and I will certainly continue to support that, but as far as money goes, Planned Parenthood is getting my donations from now on.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
the thing i hate most is that to argue for planned parenthood as a women’s health organization first, and abortion provider 23rd or whatever it actually is, reinforces the notion that you have to argue around abortion.
the deeper loss, and the reason komans of the world would even try this shit, is that pro-lifers are still screaming abortion is murder.
the arguments against this belief, and against allowing this belief to be imposed on people who don’t share it, and don’t share the precursor “faith”, have been set aside.
at a minimum there needs to be a screaming reaction to people trying to legislate morality, or am i old fashioned for remembering when that was something people opposed?
burnspbesq
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:
Reality sucks, but sucking doesn’t make it less real. Unfortunately.
I would suggest that those arguments haven’t been set aside, they have never been made. We had a similar discussion about a week ago, and I pointed out that in constitutional law terms, advocates for reproductive choice never frame their arguments in First Amendment terms. It’s always about privacy. And I’m unconvinced that that’s the right strategy. The current correlation of forces, for me, makes reproductive choice an Establishment Clause issue. It’s about (primarily) my fellow Catholics trying to impose the tenets of our faith on non-Catholics. It’s okay to preach. It’s not OK to co-opt the state to require non-Catholics to follow our beliefs. And if I get excommunicated for saying that, I’ll deal with it.
Mike G
Happy to see them getting massive blowback from this.
This cultural war cowardice where organizations cave to right-wing pressure group whining and boycotts will not stop until those same organizations see that giving in to bigots will earn them far more of a negative response.
daverave
I shared this story with a good friend of mine that has been involved with Komen for years, is on their local board and has done many 60 mile walks all over the country.
Her response:
“Thanks for the info on the komen and planned parenthood stuff. I knew that there were some issues between them and the public. So sorry that Komen caved. I have a meeting with Komen folks tomorrow evening and I have a feeling that it will be my last meeting with the organization.
I can not work with this organization if they are pulling their money from Planned Parenthood. I believe Planned Parenthood is great and doing a great job to help women and men. I used them for years when I had no insurance and I know women today that use them, so don’t think I can help Komen anymore. Too bad, I really did want to do another 60 miler this year. It’s my 60th year alive. Oh well.”
Kyle
@tamied:
Everyone should do this, and let them know it’s because of their right-wing dominionist VP Karen Handel. Make her a big, fat liability to their fund raising efforts.
KSCAR
Komen cares NOT about your donations or mine. They are pandering to the REALLY deep pockets, like the Koch Brothers and Karl Roves of the world. But corporations who depend on our dollars care…I plan to boycott.
Michael Johnson
Tell ’em directly:
http://ww5.komen.org/Contact.aspx
I did.
Mnemosyne
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:
Not only that, but they’re screaming that stopping abortion is more important than preventing women from dying of breast cancer.
We really need to make sure that we put it in those terms: the “pro-life” people would rather see an extra million women die from breast cancer than fund the mammograms that might have saved them, and all because they’re more concerned about zygotes and embryos than living women.
Make sure to remind any “pro-life” person you talk to that the Komen Foundation has decided that the fate of a bundle of cells inside a woman they don’t know is more important than the life of that “pro-life” person’s own mother, or their own grandmother, or their own sister. Ask them if they’re willing to watch their mother die a slow, agonizing, and detectable death from breast cancer so that embryos can be protected.
Angela
@RalfW: I had never seen this film, I am watching it now. Thank you for the recommendation. It is hard to watch, and it is so clarifying. The book When Abortion was a Crime by Leslie J Reagan was helpful to me also.
It is beyond me that anyone would want to go back to the days when women sought out illegal abortions and paid the price with their lives.
Brandon
Reading the comments on NPR.org and Komen have really pissed off their core constituency, totebaggers. Which is compounded by the fact that this move is reminding people of all the other questionable things Komen does that make people uneasy. While I don’t find consumer boycotts to be all that effective or persuasive in terms of how this will affect Komen’s corporate sponsorships, I do think though that a significant number of core constituents and supporters have been sufficiently put off by this such that their individual and event fundraising is going to suffer. And all for a paltry $680k annual donation for an organization that rakes in billions. Morons.
Bubblegum Tate
@Mnemosyne:
On the flip side, they’re about to get all sanctimonious and say, “Gee, it’s too bad the liberals value abortion more than they value fighting breast cancer.” Guaran-fucking-teed.
Kathleen
@Anya: Thank you, Anya. I plan to see that movie, thanks to you telling us about it.
Ruckus
@Jilli:
I can’t imagine what it’s like to have very limited to zero options.
First of all good luck.
Mom had BC 45 years ago and is still with us, 94 this month. My sister, not so lucky. She had no health insurance so was late in finding out what was wrong. She paid the price for that after 6 years of hard work and pain.
So to answer you above it is an unbelievably agonizing process to have any major health problem(or even small ones as well) and no health insurance. If the problem doesn’t get you, the bills probably will.
Ruckus
@Gust Avrakotos:
Just pied you for being a complete dickhead.
Thought you might like to know.
Jennifer Harris
The main purpose of the association with Komen was to clothe the Planned Parenthood abortion mill with legitimacy and distract the public from its primary mission of enforcing a racist population control policy by coercing women into killing their unborn children. That’s why Planned Parenthood is shrieking so loudly — their cover is gone. No one could seriously argue that Planned Parenthood, with a billion in revenue including $250 million in taxpayer funds, is being hurt by the discontinuance of Komen’s $600 thousand stipend. That’s why the abortion lobby never complained about Komen as a “scam” or claimed Komen’s officers receive inflated salaries until it could no longer profit from the “scam.”
We’re supposed to believe that thousands of women will die because PP lost $600K? I read that those funds paid for 170,000 breast exams and 6,400 mammograms. So it’s about $4 a procedure? Women are so poor and stupid they can’t come up with the price of a Big Mac to get the exams done somewhere else?
Tom in Lazybrook
It seems as if all California affiliates of SGK have publically announced their opposition to the new “policy”. It appears as if the CT affiliate is upset as well. I expect others will follow. Who will be coordinating the walks and other fundraising in the blue states this year and next?
It has also been noted that SGK gives money to Penn State. Penn State is also under investigation. Will SGK pull their funding at Penn State as well? Just asking.
Planned Parenthood is just about the only true low cost health care provider in many urban areas. They choose to locate in underserved health care areas (at the same time as supposed ‘charity’ religious hospitals are hightailing it for the suburbs). They are also a lot cheaper than other healthcare providers. Perhaps if the Catholic/Baptist/Adventist/Methodist hospitals provided mammograms for 40 bucks, the religious right might have some credibility on womens health.
Lidia
@Joseph Nobles: No, nuns are no good.
Because my RWNJ sister defended the Komen decision on the “fact” that “abortion causes breast cancer”
Why does she say this? Because “late menarche and late child-bearing” are associated with higher breast-cancer rates, according to the Merck manual, she says.
And she intuits that late-child-bearing = abortion.
So, nuns and other Christian virgins should have a higher rate of breast cancer, according to RWNJs (but I doubt that they do). And if they do, well it’s their own damn fault for not rutting like rabid weasels from the age of nine, apparently.
meg in nj
as a stage 2 breast cancer survivor of 15 years, I want to suggest supporting Memorial Sloan Kettering’s research instead of komen:
http://www.mskcc.org/research/about-research
my husband and I have raised about $40,000 for them since my diagnosis and I feel confident that the money is being used to help really find a cure…