Political whiplash

Susan G. Komen for the Cure, with its ubiquitous pink ribbons, is the most well-known breast cancer charity in the United States, but its recent disastrous PR flop has caused it to fall on hard times.

The Komen foundation’s decision to cut funding to Planned Parenthood — and its almost immediate reversal of that decision — perfectly illustrates the positively horrific muddle that results when nonprofits mix with politics.

It’s not like this lethal combination is a new thing.

Komen has been experiencing pressure from pro-life groups since it began its partnership with Planned Parenthood in 2005. For example, the group LifeWay Christian Resources, which sold pink Bibles to benefit the Komen foundation, took the Bibles off the shelves as soon as it discovered the foundation’s partnership with Planned Parenthood.

This pressure came despite the fact that the funding Komen provides for Planned Parenthood is used exclusively for breast cancer screenings and education, supplying preventative care for countless underserved women every year.

Given this precedent, the Komen foundation should have known better than to deny further funding to Planned Parenthood and then overturn that very decision days later.

Either way, Komen couldn’t win — both the initial decision and its repeal led to immense fluctuations in donations from groups for and against each decision.

Frankly, I don’t think it should matter, in this case, whether one is pro-life or pro-choice — the fact of the matter is, Komen has a noble goal that is worthy of support, regardless of one’s political persuasion.

However, when an organization that relies heavily on private donations acts in a way that puts its own integrity at risk, it can’t expect donors — and former donors — to do much better.

In making such politically charged decisions, whether they were actually politically motivated, Komen in a sense legitimized the politically motivated and misdirected reasoning of its supporters and adversaries.

This controversy has also brought to the fore the essentiality of investigating where an organization’s money goes before one takes the step of donating.

However, much of the questioning that has been directed toward Komen in recent weeks isn’t centered around whether Komen’s money is providing tangible results that are conductive to the cause of preventing and curing breast cancer.

Rather, the questioning has been whether Komen’s leaders are for or against abortion.
Questions such as this are not only irrelevant but detrimental to the foundation’s mission. Komen has clearly learned this the hard way.

­— ccleahy@indiana.edu