Susan G. Komen Foundation in Aspen Gives Grant to Planned Parenthood
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 6, 2006
Aspen, CO (LifeNews.com) — The Aspen, Colorado affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation is the latest to give money generated from its Race for the Cure event to the nation’s largest abortion business. This is despite significant research showing abortion increases the risk of contracting breast cancer.
The group has part of its proceeds to Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, which operates abortion centers in western states, including Colorado.
The Aspen Komen group’s web site indicates the organization gave Planned Parenthood a $12,887 grant, but the local newspaper in Aspen indicates the grant totals in excess of $14,000.
Aspen Komen says the grants will be used specifically to fund breast exams, mammograms and ultrasounds for uninsured and underinsured women in the Glenwood Springs area, with a focus on the Latina community.
Claudia Currey Hill, the group’s executive director, did not return by press time a call from LifeNews.com seeking comment on the grant.
The grant ironically comes after Colorado pro-life advocates held a meeting with national Komen officials about their Planned Parenthood grants and abortion’s link to breast cancer.
Former Komen medical research analyst and Hispanic outreach director Eve Sanchez Silver and Dr. Joel Brind, a professor at New York’s Baruch College met with the SGK officials in Denver in October.
The meeting also included board members of Colorado Right to Life and came just one day before Silver addressed the group’s annual banquet.
Silver, who resigned form Komen after learning that their affiliates had made significant contributions to Planned Parenthood, discussed the meeting in a statement LifeNews.com received.
"SGK officials did not appear to have knowledge of simple breast facts," Silver said.
Silver explained that the breast is an organ that is not mature at birth and SGK officials appeared to be surprised to learn that the breast does not become fully mature until after 32 weeks of pregnancy.
As a result of that state of development, interruption of pregnancy via an abortion before 32 weeks leaves breast cells exposed to estrogen, which is highly carcinogenic.
She indicated the Komen representatives also appeared to be "more concerned about assisting women after they had contracted breast cancer, than informing them to avoid breast cancer risk by avoiding abortions and having [an] early, full term pregnancy."
"This is an appalling lack of concern for the women the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation is supposed to be helping," Silver added.
During the meeting, Brind, the foremost authority on the breast cancer-abortion link, said Komen’s funding Planned Parenthood made no sense because abortions are one of the biggest causes of breast cancer.
He pointed out that breast cancer cases have risen 40 percent since abortion was made virtually unlimited in the 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade.
In 1996, Brind and other researchers conducted analysis of all the major studies done in the field to that time. They concluded that women who had an abortion before their first term child had a 50% increased risk of developing breast cancer while women who had an abortion after their first child sustained a 30% increased risk.
Silver resigned from Komen in September 2004 after the organization told her it would not stop funding Planned Parenthood.
"The Foundation has done so much for so many women through its programs and research grants," Sanchez Silver told LifeNews.com at the time. "But this revelation about Planned Parenthood and [Komen], indicates a well thought out funding strategy."
According to former Komen public relations director Kristin Kelly, Komen affiliates awarded $38.4 million in grants to support community outreach programs in 2003. That figure includes 21 grants to their local Planned Parenthood chapters totaling more than $475,000.
Sanchez Silver, a two-time breast cancer survivor and Komen’s Hispanic advisor, said the decision to send Komen money to Planned Parenthood came at a time when local Komen affiliates were struggling to find enough funds to keep afloat.
Sanchez Silver is now the director of Cinta Latina Research, an organization that conducts research into breast cancer issues and their effects on minorities.
ACTION: Contact the Aspen chapter of the Susan G. Komen Foundation at Box 4810, Aspen, CO 81612, (p) 970-920-0250, (f) 970-920-3571, or email [email protected].
Related web sites:
Cinta Latina Research – https://www.cintalatina.org
Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation – https://www.komen.org
Eve Sanchez Silver – https://stopabortionbreastcancer.org
National Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer – https://www.abortionbreastcancer.com
