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Komen struggles to defuse Planned Parenthood crisis

Reuters Health News, 2012

A police officer watches pro-life and pro-choice supporters demonstrating to mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v.
Komen for the Cure, struggled on Thursday to defuse a growing crisis over its decision to cut funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and birth control services.
women's health advocacy groups triggered a furious debate on social media sites between supporters and opponents of abortion rights.
Democratic lawmakers called on Komen to reconsider its move as the organization was thrust into the center of an intractable dispute that some say will hamper its work for years to come.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged his own money to help Planned Parenthood recoup the lost funds.
Planned Parenthood had received about $700,000 annually from Komen to provide poor women with breast cancer screening, education and access to affordable mammograms.
As the outcry intensified, Komen founder Nancy Brinker took to national television and the Internet to deny the charity's decision was the result of lobbying from anti-abortion groups.
"The scurrilous accusations being hurled at this organization are profoundly hurtful to so many of us," said Brinker, who founded the group following her sister's death in 1980 of breast cancer.
"More importantly, they are a dangerous distraction from the work that still remains to be done in ridding the world of breast cancer." But philanthropy experts said it would be difficult for Komen to convince people it was not playing politics.
Komen brand from this decision," said Melissa Berman, chief executive of nonprofit Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers, which counsels wealthy donors who give more $200 million a year.
"We would see donors reluctant to be involved with a charity whose decision-making gets influenced by short-term pressures and politics because you would always wonder who is really in charge." The Christian Science Monitor reported that the Komen foundation nevertheless reported a 100 percent increase in donations received during the past two days, although it said no hard numbers were available.