BREAKING: Komen Foundation Realizes Attempt to Screw Planned Parenthood Horribly Backfired, Reinstates Funding

BREAKING: After a veritable PR shitshow and an outpouring of funding and support for Planned Parenthood, the Susan G. Komen Foundation has retracted their decision to pull funding from the organization. Here’s their somewhat conciliatory apology:

We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.

The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. 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. That is what is right and fair.

Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.

It is our hope and we believe it is time for everyone involved to pause, slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women. We urge everyone who has participated in this conversation across the country over the last few days to help us move past this issue. We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics – anyone’s politics.

Starting this afternoon, we will have calls with our network and key supporters to refocus our attention on our mission and get back to doing our work. We ask for the public’s understanding and patience as we gather our Komen affiliates from around the country to determine how to move forward in the best interests of the women and people we serve.

We extend our deepest thanks for the outpouring of support we have received from so many in the past few days and we sincerely hope that these changes will be welcomed by those who have expressed their concern.

Bravo to everyone who spoke out against the ill-advised and clearly political initial move by the Komen Foundation. This shows that rapid vocal (and monetary!) action against dangerous and politically motivated decisions that adversely affect the right to safe and preventative health care really does have an effect. Let’s not breathe too easily though—as this election year begins we’re sure to see similar fiascoes unfold over the coming months.

Planned Parenthood recently launched Women Are Watching, their 2012 Action Fund campaign to “to educate women across the country about the unprecedented attacks on women’s health and where candidates stand on pivotal health care issues, empower women to hold anti-women’s health candidates of either party accountable, and work to elect pro-women’s health candidates up and down the ballot.”

The underlying message? Women are watching, taking action—and most importantly, they’ll be voting accordingly. You can learn more about the campaign and the issues they’ll be focusing on here.

Image via drawn by lian

MORE FROM MICHELLE KOUFOPOULOS:

Not Much of A Cure: Susan G. Komen Foundation Flips off Planned Parenthood, Poor Women Everywhere

Why Defunding Planned Parenthood Will Bankrupt America

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