The Komen Foundation claims that they cut off their breast cancer screening funding for Planned Parenthood for entirely innocent reasons. They had adopted a new rule that barred grants to organizations under investigation by local, state or federal authorities, and Planned Parenthood is currently the target of a congressional investigation. Sadly, this rule gave them no choice but to end their grants.
This is such transparent BS that it’s insulting that they didn’t bother coming up with something a wee bit more believable. Today, Jeffrey Goldberg explains what really happened:
Three sources with direct knowledge of the Komen decision-making process told me that the rule was adopted in order to create an excuse to cut-off Planned Parenthood….The decision, made in December, caused an uproar inside Komen. Three sources told me that the organization’s top public health official, Mollie Williams, resigned in protest immediately following the Komen board’s decision to cut off Planned Parenthood.
….John Hammarley, who until recently served as Komen’s senior communications adviser…explained that the Planned Parenthood issue had vexed Komen for some time. “About a year ago, a small group of people got together inside the organization to talk about what the options were, what would be the ramifications of staying the course, or of telling our affiliates they can’t fund Planned Parenthood, or something in-between.” He went on, “As we looked at the ramifications of ceasing all funding, we felt it would be worse from a practical standpoint, from a public relations standpoint, and from a mission standpoint. The mission standpoint is, ‘How could we abandon our commitment to the screening work done by Planned Parenthood?'” But the Komen board made the decision despite the recommendation of the organization’s professional staff to keep funding Planned Parenthood.
….Another source directly involved with Komen’s management activities told me that when the organization’s leaders learned of the Stearns investigation, they saw an opportunity. “The cart came before the horse in this case,” said the source, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity. “The rule was created to give the board of directors the excuse to stop the funding of Planned Parenthood. It was completely arbitrary. If they hadn’t come up with this particular rule, they would have come up with something else in order to separate themselves from Planned Parenthood.”
The right’s recent jihad against Planned Parenthood is about as loathsome as anything I’ve ever seen come out of them. They simply don’t care anymore how many people they hurt or how much harm they do to anyone they disapprove of.
