Cynthia Tucker writes Karen Handel and other opponents of Planned Parenthood may still get the last laugh, in her column, “Komen Reverses Course On Planned Parenthood…For Now.”
After several days of unmitigated disaster — bad press, angry donors, baffled supporters, unwelcome scrutiny — the leaders of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s leading advocate for breast cancer research, moved to restore their credibility and calm the roiling waters that threatened to drown the organization in unfavorable reviews. It quickly became clear to Nancy Brinker, founder and CEO, that she had besmirched her brand with a politically driven decision to end a longstanding partnership with Planned Parenthood.
But the carefully worded public statement Komen released last week doesn’t quite end the story. Advocates for women’s health should watch carefully over the next several months to see whether Brinker and her board care more about helping less-affluent women get breast cancer screenings than they do about placating the anti-choice crowd.
For years now, Komen has been pressured by rigid anti-abortionists to stop making grants to Planned Parenthood, caricatured by its critics as solely an abortion provider. Last year, for example, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, citing grants to Planned Parenthood, halted a brief campaign in which it sold pink bibles and donated some of the proceeds to Komen.
That pressure will only increase if the hardline anti-abortionists believe they had a near-victory snatched away suddenly. Komen may be looking for a quieter and less-obvious route to the same place: ending a relationship with a women’s health partner that has unfairly become a lightning rod.
