Saturday, February 4, 2012

Susan G. Komen for the Cure has announced it will continue to fund breast cancer screening and educational programming on breast health run by fellow US-charity Planned Parenthood and its affiliates. This news comes shortly after Komen announced it would cut funding to Planned Parenthood due to an ongoing investigation.

Komen has changed its internal criteria for grant funding. Previously, it would not support any organization under investigation of any kind; now it says it will only cut support if the investigation involved is “criminal and conclusive”. The old criteria disqualified Planned Parenthood because it was under investigation by United States House Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairman Representative Cliff Stearns.

In a statement on Komen’s website, the Board of Directors and founder Nancy G. Brinker wrote, “We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives. The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.”

Planned Parenthood said in response to the restoration of Komen’s funding, it was “enormously grateful”.

Since the cuts were announced, Planned Parenthood gained $3 million (€2.3m, £1.9m) in donations and 10,000 new Facebook likes. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg personally pledged $250,000 (€190k, £158k). 26 US Senators signed a public letter to the charity; in it they said, “It would be tragic if any woman — let alone thousands of women — lost access to these potentially lifesaving screenings because of a politically motivated attack.”