As Komen for the Cure came under fire from Planned Parenthood for its decision to tighten its grant-making policies — and as it faced criticism from pro-life advocates for seemingly going back on that decision, Americans United for Life’s president put one aspect of the debate into perspective.
Central to Komen’s initial decision to tighten its requirements was the knowledge that Planned Parenthood doesn’t actually do mammograms.
“As a breast cancer survivor, I am troubled that the Komen Foundation has come under such heavy fire for their recent decision to tighten and focus their funding guidelines,” AUL president Charmaine Yoest recently said. “We have all been witness to highly partisan attacks from pro-abortion advocates and an ugly and disgraceful shakedown that highlights Planned Parenthood’s willingness to pursue a scorched-earth strategy to force compliance with their pro-abortion agenda.”
Yoest shares a very personal connection with the debate.
“The American public has learned this week that Planned Parenthood does not actually provide front-line breast health services: Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms – a service that saved my life,” she said. “Komen’s long-standing partnership with the nation’s largest abortion provider has allowed Planned Parenthood to whitewash the central fact that their core mission involves providing abortion.”
Yoest says more needs to be done to investigate Planned Parenthood.
“The on-going Congressional investigation of Planned Parenthood – from the same Committee investigating Solyndra – raises substantive legal questions and areas of ethical and moral concern. As AUL detailed in our ‘Case for Investigating Planned Parenthood,’ attention to the abortion giant’s business practices is long overdue,” she said. “The Committee is concerned with wise stewardship of public taxpayer monies, just as the Komen Foundation must be concerned with their investment of donor dollars. It is unfortunate that donors to the Susan G. Komen Foundation are now confused about their association with the nation’s largest abortion provider.”
During a conference call with reporters this afternoon, Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure CEO Nancy Brinker and President Elizabeth Thompson revealed the main reason why the Planned Parenthood abortion business lost its funding. It doesn’t do mammograms.
“It was nothing they were doing wrong,” Brinker explained. “We have decided not to fund, wherever possible, pass-through grants. We were giving them money, they were sending women out for mammograms. What we would like to have are clinics where we can directly fund mammograms.”
She added, later in the day on Twitter:, saying the money “will be invested in programs to serve low-income, uninsured and underinsured women.”
“Our Board approved new grants standards to improve direct services to women,” she said. “New grants standards strive for grants that provide direct services and outcomes. We have to put metrics, outcomes and measures to our grants so we can translate the science we’ve funded over 30 yrs. We will continue to provide services to vulnerable populations with care, treatment and screening.”
“We’ve decided not to fund pass-through grants. What we would like is to have clinics where we can directly fund mammograms,” she added.
Komen has known since last Spring that Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms. In emails Susan G. Komen for the Cure was sending to people complaining about their grants to the Planned Parenthood abortion business, officials claim the grants are given to help women obtain breast cancer screenings. Yet, Komen also admitted Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms.
A late March expose’ from Live Action revealed no Planned Parenthood centers nationally provide mammograms.
Live Action released videotaped footage of calls to 30 Planned Parenthood centers nationwide in 27 different states where abortion facility staff were asked whether or not mammograms could be performed on site. Every one of the Planned Parenthood centers admitted they could not do mammograms. Every Planned Parenthood, without exception, tells the women calling that they will have to go elsewhere for a mammogram, and many clinics admit that no Planned Parenthood clinics provide this breast cancer screening procedure.
“We don’t provide those services whatsoever,” admits a staffer at Planned Parenthood of Arizona while a staffer at Planned Parenthood’s Comprehensive Health Center clinic in Overland Park, Kansas tells a caller, “We actually don’t have a, um, mammogram machine, at our clinics.”
