Dear Komen for the Cure:
You stupid, cowardly, shit-eating, fucking asswipes need to go fuck yourselves with several rusty pitchforks™. It’s fucking pathetic of you to go after Planned Parenthood in this blatantly partisan manner. Take your fucking pink ribbon and stick it where the sun don’t shine!
Fuck you, assholes.
Sincerely,
asiangrrlMN
Pure rage. That was my immediate response to reading on the Twitter Machine that the Komen for the Cure charity had decided to stop funding Planned Parenthood. My esteemed overlady, ABL, has an excellent piece on the situation and the strong anti-choice views held by Karen Handel, the new VP of Public Policy of Komen (hint: she pals around with Sarah Palin.)
I will have more to say on that in a minute, but I need to give you some background first.
I’ve had abortion on the mind a lot lately Why? ’Coz I’m a liberal and that’s all we ever think about, at least according to some rightwing nutters. Actually, it’s because the RWNJ are passing laws right and right encroaching upon women’s right to choose. I have written about it several times in the past, and I have a hunch I will write about it several more times in the future. The piece I was contemplating writing was going to be about how I view abortion in general because I am pretty extreme on the issue, even for a liberal.
That piece will be shelved for another day, however, as I am seething with rage over this Komen/Planned Parenthood bullshit. There is so much bullshit involved, I need my rusty pitchfork™ so I can stab some motherfuckers in the cavities where their hearts would be – if they had hearts.
Some facts on the Komen for Cure Foundation, peppered with totally biased personal opinions
I have never been a fan of the Race for the Cure, and I will admit up front that some of it is because of aesthetics and old baggage. I loathe the color pink and the fact that it’s identified as a feminine color, and I hated it when professional sports teams wear pink as a way to show their support for breast cancer research. Well, that’s supposedly what they are doing, but in reality, it’s mostly a way to sell official pink-colored jerseys and shit. To paraphrase Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own, there is no pink in sports!
The real issue I have with the Race for the Cure, though, and other charity events like it is that so little of their money goes to what they actually purport to be advocating. In the case of the Komen Foundation, their express purpose is finding a cure for breast cancer. Yet, according to their fund report from 2009, only 17% of the money they received/earned went to funding cancer research. As the author in the aforementioned link notes, they did other worthwhile things with their money, but still. 17% for the actual cause of the charity? In addition, also according to the link, the Komen Foundation is notorious for suing any charity, no matter how small, who has ‘for the cure’ in its name. How is that effective use of donation money, really?
Moreover, while I appreciate that the Race allows people to come together for a cause and personally commit to doing something positive, I am a ‘donate the money directly’ kind of gal and skip the surrounding events. So, while I could theoretically appreciate the Race for the Cure, I never had the desire to join it.
In researching for this post, I discovered that the founder of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, Nancy G. Brinker (Komen’s sister) is a major GOP donor and an ex-Bush (W., not H.W.) ambassador. Board members include Jane Abraham who is the chair of the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-forced-birth nonprofit organization, and Maureen Scalia. Yes, the wife of Justice Antonin Scalia.
As ABL pointed out in her post I linked above, the new Vice President of Public Policy, Karen Handel, also pro-forced-birth, ran explicitly on a anti-choice platform in her unsuccessful bid as governor of Georgia. She was seen palling around with Sarah Palin (who endorsed her), too, which is another negative in my book. However, it’s a quote from her on her own blog that makes me pause.
First, let me be clear, since I am pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood. During my time as Chairman of Fulton County, there were federal and state pass-through grants that were awarded to Planned Parenthood for breast and cervical cancer screening, as well as a “Healthy Babies Initiative.” The grant was authorized, regulated, administered and distributed through the State of Georgia. Because of the criteria, regulations and parameters of the grant, Planned Parenthood was the only eligible vendor approved to meet the state criteria. Additionally, none of the services in any way involved abortions or abortion-related services. In fact, state and federal law prohibits the use of taxpayer funds for abortions or abortion related services and I strongly support those laws. Since grants like these are from the state I’ll eliminate them as your next Governor.
ABL tackled the first part I bolded, but I wanted to focus on the last few sentences. Handel acknowledged that PP received a grant for breast and cervical cancer screening and that there are state and federal laws that prohibit PP from cavalierly applying that money to abortions. Yet, in her last sentence, also bolded by me, she said that she would eliminate such grants, anyway. Why? Because Planned Parenthood! Evil! Abortions! ACORN! Head ‘asploding now! Must run around like headless chicken!
Planned Parenthood is evil because. It doesn’t matter that they used the money for cancer screening. They must be eliminated because THEY ARE PURE EVIL! That’s her mentality, and no amount of reasoning will change her mind. She brought that thinking with her when she went to work for the Komen Foundation. So, it’s no fucking surprise that Komen cut off funding to Planned Parenthood. Does it seem blatant and tone-deaf? Well, yes, but again, referring to the above quote, many pro-forced birthers are used to talking amongst themselves and don’t realize how out-of-touch they sound outside their bubbles.
Plus, they thought their purported reason of not giving money to any organization under investigation would cover their ass, no matter how lame and insipid that explanation was. Linda Hirshman from The Atlantic deftly destroys this reasoning, explaining that it’s nothing more than a witch hunt. Pay special attention to the last paragraph of her post for something the Komen Foundation should be doing rather than taking monies away from Planned Parenthood.
What is Planned Parenthood and why all this matters
Planned Parenthood is the bogeyman of the right because they provide abortions, period. To hear the pro-forced-birthers tell it, that’s all Planned Parenthood does 24/7. They probably even have a drive-through abortion window, y’all! Buy one get one free! But, we all know that despite what a certain chickenshit senator from Arizona claimed, abortions is NOT 90% of what PP does.
Here is the breakdown of how Planned Parenthood spent its money in 2010. 38% of their funding went to STD testing. 33.5% went to contraception-related services. 14.5% went to cancer screening and prevention. OTHER women’s health services clocked in at 10.4%. Abortion? 3%! The only thing that had less funding was “other” at .6%. 3 fucking percent, people – none of that from taxpayer money, remember because we can’t pay for a legal medical procedure, apparently.
From Planned Parenthood via the Twitter Machine, in five years, the money they received from the Komen Foundation enabled them to do almost 170,000 clinical breast exams and 6,400 mammogram referrals out of the 4 million plus and 70,000 respectively. Tom Levenson of The Inverse Square Blog and a front-pager at Balloon Juice crunches the number to see what the loss of such funding, assuming it won’t be replaced, means.
You want to know why the targeting of Planned Parenthood pisses me off so fucking much? Well, there are many reasons, but a primary one is that Planned Parenthood serves many low-income neighborhoods. From the same link that discloses how their money is spent, Planned Parenthood notes that 76% of their clients have incomes at or below 150% of the federal poverty level, emphasis mine. They provide services at low costs and are often the only option for low-income people.
You know what else? Socioeconomic and race both have an impact on how a woman fares with breast cancer, starting from if she even gets diagnosed. African American women are less likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer, but more likely to die from it. So, once again, low-income women and women of color get screwed because of some rightwing purity ideology bullshit.
You want to know why else Planned Parenthood matters? Well, here’s a Tumblr that will tell you exactly why they do! It’s called Planned Parenthood Saved Me.
The Komen Foundation itself recognized that PP did yeoman’s work for women of color, poor women, and other disadvantaged women and said as long as PP used the money for breast cancer-related services, Komen would continue to fund said services.
But, that’s so 2011, y’all. And, after an intense campaign by pro-forced-birthers to get them to stop funding Planned Parenthood and with the inclusion of rabidly pro-forced birther, Karen Handel, there could only be one ending – this one.
The aftermath – and my promise
The Komen Foundation is reeling from all the negative publicity. They and their supporters are tweeting about how typical of a ‘pro-abortion’ group to turn this into a political thing, as if they weren’t being political about it in the first place. Oh, and I think they actually believed they could do this with little fanfare and no pushback. Snicker. I must admit to a certain vicious schadenfreude at the thought of them frantically spin, spin, spinning this as best they can.
It’s been reported that Planned Parenthood has received $400,000 in donations since the announcement that Komen pulled its funding. Komen gave PP roughly $680,000 last year, which means we still have a way to go to match the lost monies. My angry black overlady linked to the Planned Parenthood emergency breast cancer fund, and I urge you to donate if you can. If you can’t? Volunteer for PP – they always need help. Most importantly, we have to remember that this was the end result of a coordinated attack by the anti-choicers. As my friend, @vc_three said on the Twitter Machine, they. never. stop. The difference now is that the anti-choicers don’t care what the collateral damage is, if they ever did.
So. My initial feeling of white-hot, intense rage that I wrote about waaay up at the top of this post? It’s changed into a cold, determined fury that goes something like this:
Dear Komen Foundation:
You have made it clear that you care more about your image and your ideology than actual women. You are now playing the victim, accusing Planned Parenthood and its supporters of making this political. You’re fucking right it’s political – it’s also personal.
You have every right to pull your funding from Planned Parenthood for whatever bullshit reason you choose. In return, we who support Planned Parenthood have every right to not give you one red cent and to convince everyone we know to stop Racing for the Cure as well.
You want a fight? You fucking got one. I have watched as the pro-forced birthers have steadily chipped away at laws supporting choice, and this is the fucking last straw for me. I and my side didn’t start this – but I sure as hell am going to do everything in my power to make sure assholes like you no longer matter. Is that a threat, you ask? No, it’s a fucking promise.
Trust.
asiangrrlMN
Hey now, you gotta admit Nancy Brinker represents the Good Ole Entrepreneurial Spirit That Made America (Meaning TEXAS!!!) Great. God handed her a dead sister — she made a stairway to heaven out of the corpse and a pile of pink shit.
Both my sisters have cancer, though not breast cancer. (Well, one is in remission — for now.) My parents both died of different forms of cancer. My aunt was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. I have friends who died way too young from their own battles.
And I would HOPE that anyone I loved and wished to honor would rise from wherever they are in the afterlife and strangle me with a pink ribbon if I ever dishonored their memory by engaging in the naked profiteering and politicking that the Komen Foundation board (including Brinker) has engaged in.
Of course, Handel was endorsed by that great champion of women, Sarah Palin. How does Sarah Palin feel about at least one woman with cancer? Let’s go to the tape!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9AIDRGzUAw
Right there with you, Kerry on your penultimate paragraph. And, hugs to you. Cancer fucking sucks.
I joked about this earlier, but I’m half-tempted to change my name to Kerry For the Cure Reid so the Komen jackal-attorneys will come after me.
Finally, also, too: this crap makes me mad enough that I almost wish I could reverse the hysterectomy I had this summer so I could get knocked up and have a Spite Abortion. (I’m kidding. I think.)
Actually, the prize for the funniest response to clinic protestors I ever heard would have to be divided between John Waters (who wrote an essay once in which he said he liked to scream at them “I wish I was a girl so I could have an abortion!”) and my friend Jill, who went up to a group of protestors and told them she was pregnant — with Satan’s baby. And everyone was telling her she had to abort but she knew it was wrong because Lil Beelzebub was already a SACRED LIFE and would they please help her pretty please with sugar on top so she wouldn’t have to abort the Spawn of Satan?
The look of confusion and terror in their eyes was priceless.
Pity Nancy Brinker and Karen Handel. They’re living with cancer of the soul.
Bravo!
Also, too: this.
My mother died of breast cancer.
This has made me very, very angry, in a calm, quiet sort of way.
So sorry about your mom, TGWTP. And, yeah. My fury is cold now.
Thank you for giving my rage coherent voice. I was literally shaking and speechless with rage last night. I donated to Planned Parenthood last night and will continue to do so, but even that gesture didn’t calm me. Doing everything in my power to eradicate this fucking organization and its ilk off the face of the earth in terms of relevancy? Yeah, that’s more like it. I’m IN.
Me too.
Planned Parenthood helped me when I was one of the working poor. Pap smears, pelvic exams, and contraception. I will never stop being a supporter of PP and the Susan G Komen Foundation can take a flying leap at the moon.
Planned Parenthood saved my life by providing a low-cost, safe, and compassionate pregnancy termination decades ago. If that option hadn’t been available, I would have killed myself. For real. I was 21, in a deep depression, and in a relationship with someone who was equally messed up. It wasn’t until I talked to a counselor at PP and she let me know that no matter what I chose, they would find resources for me and not judge me that I stopped having suicide ideation around what I viewed as a stupid mistake for which I should pay with my own life.
And you know what? Once I went through with it, the depression lifted. Oh, I know — the far right LOVES to think that every woman who has had an abortion is horribly scarred for life — retribution gets their stubby little nubs half-stiff most of the time, and woman-hating covers the other half of the day. But though I regretted the series of circumstances and poor decisions that had resulted in the abortion, I realized in the aftermath that I could take control and value my life and my prospects more than I had up to that point.
And most importantly? I was ALIVE. And sorry, Potential Whatever-You-Were at 12 weeks, but I was here first. Does that sound callous? Too damn bad. Frankly, I think we spend a lot more time weeping over potential children than we do taking care of the ones who are actually here. (Look at the rates of poverty, incarceration, asthma, etc., etc., etc. that plague American kids.)
The people of Planned Parenthood were there for me before, during, and after my procedure — and a few years later, when I worked for them as a hotline and volunteer coordinator, I realized how many women they helped with a wide array of services. Wanna know the kind of stuff we dealt with? Hypertension. Sexual abuse. Cervical warts. Cervical cancer. 11-year-olds who had been raped by family members. And yes, suspicious lumps that we referred out for mammograms. And sex education that always started with abstinence, but abstinence that wasn’t based in “God demands that you remain chaste so you can be a better trophy and vessel for your husband-lord-master,” but in a realistic AND feminist model of “there are a lot of things you can do in life that don’t require pleasing men, so if you’re not ready for sex, it’s okay to say no. And if you do think you’re ready, it’s smart to practice safe sex and avoid pregnancy and STDs.” (No wonder so many insecure far-right misogynists hate Planned Parenthood — we emphasize that Pleasing The Patriarchy isn’t the primary role for a woman.)
And all those people who swagger and jeer that “abortion is murder!” can look me up, come to my house, and put a bullet in my brain if they want to serve their sick “fetus > living grown woman” fantasies. Or at least stop bullshitting and tell me that you want all women who have abortions to be put on Death Row or imprisoned for life for murder. If you don’t demand the same level of justice for that “crime” as you would any other “murder,” then I’m afraid you really DON’T care about the fetus — you just want to get off on controlling other people’s lives.
*applauds*
Kerry, you really nailed it with this comment. My abortion post was going to touch on many of the things you mentioned here. Tell it like it is!
Thank you! I was in a very similar situation with my firstborn. Luckily a quick infanticide and I was feeling much better. I hate it how people act like all women are going to get depressed after an abortion. If you don’t care, you don’t care!
Amen, sistah! That was my doctor when I had zero money in my early 20′s.
asiangrrl, you’ve put into words what has been going through my mind since this news came out I’ve donated to the Komen Foundation in the name of my mother, who was a breast cancer survivor, but no more (and profound apologies to mom-in-heaven….I had no idea they would do such a horrid thing).
No more, though. No more. I will donate directly to PP, not just because I have used their services in the past, as has my daughter, but because I believe that women should have access to breast cancer screenings, regardless of income.
As you put it so eloquently:
“You want a fight? You fucking got one. I have watched as the pro-forced birthers have steadily chipped away at laws supporting choice, and this is the fucking last straw for me. I and my side didn’t start this – but I sure as hell am going to do everything in my power to make sure assholes like you no longer matter. Is that a threat, you ask? No, it’s a fucking promise. ”
It’s a promise from me too!
Talk about pink in the Stink!!!! The Komen apologists cite that they don’t support groups under investigation, but are handing $$$ out to Penn State hand over fist!!! Methinks that the org doth protesteth toooo much. Sorry, the pink ribbon shot themselves in the foot by bowing down to the knuckledragging mouthbreathers. My mom survived colon cancer, and as a sign of support I bought some ‘pink’ tchotchkes to support the cause. Never again. If the NeoConferderate GOPod People wish to play king of the mountain, so be it. Our side is BIGGER, and no amount of hate, guns or their Blood god will change it. They better prey that when this is over they have a preserve to hang their hoods and whine to each other and not driven en masse to the coastlines and pushed into the sea to make foundations for coral.
Until we separate religion from science, stay tuned to far-right pseudo-science!
I remember reading Sarah Palin’s account of how she reacted to the news that she was pregnant with Trig. She said that at first she didn’t tell anyone, not even Todd. Then she thought about it and decided to continue the pregnancy. She exercised her moral agency and made a CHOICE. She didn’t tell her husband so that she could make the CHOICE herself. She is anti choice for every other woman and girl but when it came to one of the most difficult, personal, and empowering decisions of her life –her actions were clearly PRO CHOICE.
I don’t understand….if you don’t believe in Abortion, don’t have one. It is pretty simple. Planned Parenthood helps people. How can anyone be against such a fine group that helps Women with information and planning? Sometimes I just don’t understand people……
I know! That’s what I keep saying to people who criticise my infanticide. I don’t understand… if you don’t believe in infanticide, don’t have one! It’s pretty simples. Understanding that different people have different moral standards is hard…
Except that abortion is not infanticide (which would be the murder of a living, birthed infant). Unless, of course, you have an agenda to push…
It’s simple, if you don’t believe in a thing. Don’t have that thing. Isn’t that gar’s argument? People have no reason to push their morality on me. Right? Simplistic arguments FTW!
The difference, Sarah, is that your infanticide would be against the law. We have actual laws against that, as I’m sure you know. So, it’s not a moral issue – it’s a legal one. Abortion is legal. Until this is not the case, your equivalence is not even analogous, even if you meant it sincerely, which I have a hunch you did not.
Not here in Somalia it isn’t. No laws = no worries.
But legality wasn’t my point. All I’m saying is that I agree with gar, I don’t understand why people who morally object to a practice would object to me doing it. It’s really quite a puzzler.
Maybe it’s time to create a pink ribbon with a blue stripe?
Thanks for the reminder. I just donated. I so want to smite the Komen Foundation. Sigh. Will never donate to Komen again unless my Philly affiliate disassociates from the national group.
It’s weird, for me.
If Komen had said “we’re pulling funding because we don’t approve of how Planned Parenthood provides abortion services,” I wouldn’t like that. But, hey, it’s their money, their choice.
But they didn’t. And for some reason, this pisses me off far out of proportion to the issue. And it’s also galvanized me. I realized that this is a war, it’s going to continue, and it’s not a time when someone can stand on the sidelines and think “at least I’m not causing harm.” It’s time when I think folks have to stand on the right side, or they are one of the bad guys.
I’m really happy that folks like you and ABL have been on this issue so extensively.
Me.,..I’ve been so mad I couldn’t put an extensive post together.
this is about WOMEN’S LIVES.
women who go to Planned Parenthood HAVE NOWHERE ELSE TO GO, and this fucking bytch and the rest of the hyenas think that it’s ok to put POOR WOMEN’S LIVES AT RISK CAUSE THEY DON’T LIKE ABORTION?
FUCK THEM TO INFINITY.