Re: “Planned Parenthood does not perform mammograms” there was some disscusion in this thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=604385&highlight=mammogram
Sorry if my impression was incorrect.
I am absolutely astonished that in a great, powerful country like the USA there is only one organisation doing that kind of work, I can think of 5 or 6 in Peru.
I was really talking out of my (very nice, by the way) ass. However, if it is true that it’s PP or nothing, then the US has much bigger healthcare problems than SKG and PP.
I apologise from imagining that the US had more than one organisation providing “women-specific healt-related services” in your country.
You may have heard that the U.S. does have some major health care problems. 
That being said, Planned Parenthood’s status and its relationship to Komen mean this decision makes even less sense - and even if Komen’s money did go to abortions, people would be well within their rights to weigh in on the rightnes or wrongness of what Komen is doing.
37 whole seconds to find this.
I’m pro-death, as are all of my liberal friends.
I wanted to thank you for this post. Such a nuanced view of PP is rare, in my experience, in the pro-life community, and I’m very appreciative of your support of an organization that is so controversial in terms of your personal morality about the issue of abortion.
The Denver affiliate announced yesterday that it will do the same.
As I remember from that thread (and I can’t find the specific post now), Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms because they don’t operate the sort of radiology clinics equipped to do so, although the PP doctors do prescribe mammograms and direct patients to the clinics that do. Sort of the way that my doctor doesn’t provide me with Oxycontin (or whatever medication) but he does give me a prescription for it that I can get filled at a pharmacy.
Aside from private doctors and community-based clinics, PP is a national organization known for its outstanding good works in areas of the country that do not have access to many choices for healthcare for low income women. Whether or not a particular community has additional sources, PP is nationally a major, unbiased, deliverer of healthcare.
The fact that this organization is specifically targeted is an indication of how important it is. The fact that an organization like SGK, whose outward face is doing everything it can to help prevent breast cancer, would target one of the more important deliverers of such care to women with few other choices, is something that should be known.
(my bolding)
Absolutely agreed. I have no problems with people saying the SKG made the worst possible decision, that’s the whole point of a message board.
I personally think, and already have said, that if abortions were the problem, SKG should’ve said it without hiding in “congressional investigation” crap.
You can just imagine what it would look like it people got mad at them.
True, but since abortion has absolutely nothing to do with Susan G Komen’s stated goals, they have to pretend the funding cut is for general shadiness lest they end up being branded as an anti-abortion organization. Their strategy did not seem to go precisely as planned.
If your point is that you object to the label “pro-life,” I’m sorry but that’s the common term. You can call me “anti-abortion” if you like. I don’t mean to accuse you or anyone else of being pro-death or pro-abortion.
I consider myself liberal too, by the way. Liberal enough to accept that not everyone has to agree with my view of abortion.
The issue isn’t that there are no other sources for women-specific health services, the issue is that there are millions of women who don’t have access to those sources because of financial constraints. If there are 300 doctors in town and you don’t have the necessary funds to pay them for an exam and pap smear or mammogram, you’re going to get the exact same cancer screening as if there were no doctors in town.
And for millions of women in America for whom without PP there might as well be no doctors in town. If you have a certain amount of money, you either have health insurance or can self pay, and if you’re poor enough the government or a charity will pick up the tab. But there’s a pretty sizable distance between those levels. If you hear people talk about “the coverage gap” that’s what they’re on about–that no man’s land where you’re simultaneously too poor and not poor enough to get any sort of routine health care. PP is, Afaik, the only widespread program that offers affordable care to people who fall into that gap. ( There are sometimes local or regional programs for sliding scale health care, but finding those is really hit or miss.)
You’d think in the last superpower there would be more options for affordable health care, but as the old saying goes, that’s what you get for thinking.
Nancy Brinker did not come off well at all in that video.
Oh yeah…wanted to let everyone know that I’ve had no response back from the Komen email address listed upthread (big surprise, I know).
Just because it’s common doesn’t mean we can’t object to it.
Yep, total organization woman in defend-the-organization mode.
No wonder they went into a corporate spaz over the trademark issues. That shows their ethos: the organization is an end in itself, the cause only a justification for it.
Charity is a good, but a charitable entity need not be good.
And that’s my issue. Kudos (form me at least) if you say “we don’t donate for abortions”, but now they’ve put themselves in a situation were they can only dig a bigger hole. If thet continue, the get the pro-choice wrath, if the back down, the get the pro-life wrath.
“That’s what you get for thinking”, never truer.
Oregon and another state are condemning the national action and planning to continue business as usual.
Seriously? You are sincerely confused that someone objects to that term?
Just because some term is common does not mean that it cannot possibly be offensive. A little thought should make you realize that.
“Pro-life” implies that people who disagree with you are anti-life or pro-death. Also, it doesn’t really describe your position, does it? Someone who just popped on the scene with no knowledge of the current politics surrounding abortion is unlikely to hear the term “pro-life” and think that it specifically refers to being against abortion.
Who is anti-life? It’s ridiculous to imply that someone is. “Pro-life” is a fuzzy, almost meaningless term that was designed by marketers and focus groups. You are anti-abortion. Fair enough. Just say what you are and be proud of it.
The Komen foundation needs to be prepared for journalists looking over other recipients of their funds with a fine-tooth comb. An example:
Komen’s $7.5 Million Grant to Penn State Appears to Violate New Policy
in Mother Jones, By Adam Serwer with additional reporting by Kate Sheppard | Thu Feb. 2, 2012 12:56 PM PST
Article asks, if the Komen foundation does not fund organizations under federal investigation (e.g. Planned Parenthood), should they be awarding a $7.5 million grant to the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center for cancer research, since Penn State is under investigation by the federal government over the sexual assault scandal involving former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky?