I have struggled for the past day to put into words how news of your decision to de-fund planned parenthood has made me feel. I don't even think there is a word in the english language that encapsulates the sadness, anger and frustration that I felt at the news. I've thought about for hours -having discussions with friends and strangers on the internet. But now I can sum it up in one word -DISGUST
DISGUST -because by de-funding Planned Parenthood it shows the foundation is managed from punitive "they should have known better /they get what they deserve" place and that poor people don't deserve to get screened and tested for breast cancer and you don't really actually care to help them if they don't share the same values as you do. That's the underlying message.
DISGUST -because you can't come clean about what you are doing. That you are hiding behind a completely fabricated story that this was done for efficiencymakes it even worse. No one believes you. We know you hired Karen Handel last year. The same Karen Handel that made it part of her platform to defund Planned Parenthood when she was running for Governor the year before you hired her. Don't try to pass this off as routine business and then accuse me of playing politics with people's lives.
DISGUST -because of what you have done to my friends that are breast cancer survivors -their disappointment in an organization they rallied around and looked up to is palpable. My friends and family that have endured the horrible trials of breast cancer and worked with you to raise awareness, and support research, are now heart broken.
DISGUST -because you lost everyone's trust. If politicians are going to be able to sway you from your mission because of ideology how soon until you stop funding research that goes against that same ideology. I look at your grant list and I wonder about each and every one of them -did they make the cut because they of what they are not doing. I don't know enough about cancer research to know what limits you may be putting on cancer research. But now I don't trust you to put your mission above a political agenda.
Fran Visco of the National Breast Cancer Coalition wrote an articleon the lack of progress made on the Breast Cancer front. Every October everything from my salt to my football players are dressed in pink to raise awareness but 18 months ago Ms. Visco wrote:
Twenty five years ago, in the United States, 110 women died of breast cancer every day. Twenty five years and billions of private and public research dollars later, that number is 110. Every day. Not much progress, is it?
Now I'm not blaming that lack of progress on the Komen Foundation. But I have come to the conclusion that there is the possibility that you might not be the best advocate for the cure out there -even if that is your trademark.
The Komen Foundation has always been remarkable - doing everything larger than life -setting standards for merchandising a disease (something I've not been 100% comfortable with), setting standards for awareness and fund raising, and building community. Well a new standard has been set - a standard where one of the nations' flagship charities has blatantly and willfully chosen politics over cause, ideology over progress, agenda over people -and that disgusts me.