the rix mix

The fury of women at Susan G. Komen for the Cure® for de-funding Planned Parenthood is really something. One commentator wrote it's a "case study  in how to destroy a brand in 48 hours."  On the NJ Komen® website, State Executive Director Lisa Gallipoli writes:

The North Jersey Affiliate has always exhibited the highest level of transparency and integrity in our grant-making process to ensure the best stewardship of funds raised and donated by our constituents. In North Jersey, our contractual agreements with grantees have always stipulated that organizations need to be non-profit organizations, focused on breast health and able to receive federal and state funding. Our requirements also preclude grants to any organization that is under investigation by local, state or federal authorities. Planned Parenthood is currently under federal investigation, and therefore is not eligible to apply for future funding from Susan G. Komen for the Cure® until such time as the investigation is resolved.

It won't do, & she knows it won't do. Planned Parenthood here receives very little money from Komen® anyway, but serves the poor, working poor, the uninsured, teenagers & college students. Many thousands of women in Jersey received their first gyn exams after  becoming sexually active, first contraceptives,   & first breast exams from or referred  by Planned Parenthood. Their center in Elizabeth offers men's health care & welcomes LGBT. The  national Komen® decision will result in direct contributions to N.J.  P.P. many times over what it loses in Komen® funding next year. Women here know the federal investigation is a right wing witch hunt, an assault on women's right to control their own bodies,  & intent on wrecking Planned Parenthood, & that the Komen® "criteria" is a recent change aimed specifically at P.P., & many will resent any portion of their contributions going to the national Komen® office in Texas. Ms. Gallipolli is facing  the possibility of the collapse of local Komen® as the preeminent breast cancer research & prevention nonprofit, the one with the lock on pink ribbons & the word "cure" (use "cure" in your charity name & you'll hear from Komen® lawyers). Every product bearing a pink ribbon is announcing, "boycott me if you support Planned Parenthood."

Maybe the national organization believes it'll recoup the losses when the Southern Baptist Convention re-institutes its "Pink Ribbon Bible" campaign, one dollar donated for every Bible sold.  But what happens to the Greater New York Susan G Komen® affiliate, with its celebrity-laden, high profile events that make the newspaper society pages? What happens in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago?

By caving into right wing anti-choice (including contraception) influence, the national Komen® board politicized their organization,   & there's no turning back. This is not  blowing over quickly.