Double-speak from Komen Foundation

Here's the issue in a nutshell.   Nancy Brinker founded the Susan Komen Foundation For the Cure (of breast cancer) to honor her sister who died from the disease.  It has been a major fund-raiser and grant-awarder for research, prevention, and treatment.

Its announcement that it was not renewing funding for most of its Planned Parenthood grants met with a swift and thunderous backlash, accusing Komen of caving in to political pressure from the anti-abortion crowd.

This was initially fueled by a spokesman who said that Planned Parenthood was dropped because of a new policy that Komen would not fund any group that is being "investigated" by a local, state, or federal government.    Critics say that the "investigation" by political opponents on trumped up charges is just part of doing business for Planned Parenthood.   The anti-abortion crowd is always on the attack against them and looking for anything to trigger an investigation by publicity-seeking politicians, so they could perpetually be "under investigation."

Critics also pointed to the inconsistency in the fact that the hospital at Penn State is still getting Komer research funds, while the university is "under investigation" for its handling of the child abuse scandal.

So then Brinker did an ABC interview with Andrea Mitchell in which she gave a different defense.  She claimed the decision was made by the Komer Trustees and that it was a new direction in their policy to give direct funding to agencies that actually perform breast screening mammograms, implying that PP was merely an intermediary that refers poor women to other facilities for the mammograms.   Komer wants to directly fund those who do the exams and can then follow through with treatment plans.   That makes sense.   The validity of the reasoning is backed up by the fact that they did not defund PP groups in three areas that lack other facilities that could be funded directly.

Critics claim that this is merely a convenient excuse to cave in to political pressure.  That opinion is bolstered by the fact that Komen recently hired Karen Handel as a Senior Vice President for Public Policy.  Handel was the unsuccessful candidate for Georgia governor, who declared her opposition to abortion and to Planned Parenthood.    Brinker claims that Handel had nothing to do with the decision.  But then why would you hire someone to head your public policy office who is categorically opposed to one of the main recipients of your grants?   That seems like a conflict of interest -- or was it exactly the first step of caving in to political pressure?

Now, after several days of brutal backlash, including the resignation of several top Komen officials and outraged response from donors who support PP, Komen has released a statement apologizing to the American public and (sort of) reversing its decision.  It includes this:

"We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not. Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political."

So they're reversing the decision based on a reversal of what was the original explanation (under investigation) but not what Nancy Brinker herself said was the reason for the defunding (direct access to mammograms).

Further, if you read the fine print, it isn't such a reversal afterall.  They will honor current grants already made to PP but not any others (they were already going to do that).  They won't fund the requested grants for this coming year, BUT it "preserves their eligibility to apply for future grants."    Well, sure, they can apply.  It doesn't mean they will grant it.  A real reversal of the decision would have been going ahead and funding the applications already filed for the coming year.   They did not.

This only adds to the impression that the real reason was indeed political, caving in to the donors who categorically opposed PP because a small portion of its activities involve abortion for poor women, even though Komen funds were segregated from those activities.

When you make up excuses to cover up the real reason, and then someone challenges the made-up excuse, it's pretty hard to make much sense of the mess you created.   As Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and Herman Cain all discovered, it's the cover-up that always brings you down.

Komen should just be honest and say, "Look, we have some people who will make huge donations to our good cause of fighting breast cancer, but they will not do so as long as we make grants to Planned Parenthood.   Given the potential contributions for the good cause we stand for, we're going to go that route."  Let Komen re-align itself with the anti-abortion crowd and the Catholic Church, and then all the pro-life supporters can give their money somewhere else -- perhaps to Planned Parenthood to fund a mammogram program.

Ralph