Right Wing Groups Pressure Komen Foundation to Stop Funding Planned Parenthood

After a long campaign from antigay and anti-abortion groups, The Susan G. Komen Foundation, the leading organization for breast cancer research, announced Tuesday that it will pull its ties with progressive family planning network, Planned Parenthood.

Both organizations have helped countless women with health issues, but Planned Parenthood has been a long target of conservatives because of its availability to perform abortions. Leaders of the Komen foundation told the Associated Press that they will pull approximately $680,000 from Planned Parenthood funding. According to the report, most of that funding went to breast examinations.

Republican members of Congress, led by Florida Rep. Cliff Stearns, have launched an investigation into Planned Parenthood. That probe caused the revocation of funds, a spokeswoman for Komen told the AP. Leaders at Komen recently instituted a new policy barring their organization from awarding grants to groups that are under investigation by government authorities.

Tony Perkins of the antigay, antichoice Family Research Council, said Tuesday that Komen was "putting women's health first rather than [funding] the nation's largest abortion provider." He also accused Planned Parenthood of lying about offering mammograms and breast exams.

Planned Parenthood made a plea to supporters asking for people to help them recoup the lost funding, which went to 19 clinics in rural and under-served communities for breast health education, screenings, and referrals for mammograms.

“We are alarmed and saddened that the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation appears to have succumbed to political pressure,” Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement on Tuesday. "Our greatest desire is for Komen to reconsider this policy and recommit to the partnership on which so many women count."

In the last five years, Planned Parenthood's partnership with Komen has led to 170,000 clinical breast exams in those 19 health centers. Nationally, Planned Parenthood's doctors and nurses perform about 750,000 breast cancer screenings.

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