Planned Parenthood

I am a recent member of Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s Young Women’s National Advisory Council, a previous director of Stony Brook University School of Medicine’s chapter of Medical Students for Choice, and a future family medicine physician. I was incredibly disappointed by Susan G. Komen’s recent decision to end its funding of breast health programs at Planned Parenthood affiliates across the United States.

The Komen Foundation’s statement says that it “will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.” But this is NOT a reversal of any kind.

I'd like to dissect how Komen for the Cure completely destroyed a brand 3 decades in the making and how they're now a different organization with a different future (if they even have one), whether they like it or not. My goal here is to help people understand this so you don't make the same mistakes.

Follow Raven Brooks on Twitter, @ravenb

In the wake of the attacks on Planned Parenthood by Congressman Cliff Stearns and the Susan G. Komen Foundation, social media and tech guru Deanna Zandt created a tumblr this week at which women are telling their stories about how Planned Parenthood saved their lives through early cancer detection and other means.

Follow Jodi Jacobson on Twitter, @jljacobson

We must stand with Planned Parenthood. But let’s not do so in a way that denies the extreme importance of all the services they provide. As advocates for reproductive justice, the last thing we can afford to do is allow ourselves to become complicit in the stigmatization of abortion.

This week it became clear there are things more important to the Susan G. Komen Foundation--the fundraising giant that each year during breast cancer awareness month virtually swathes the United States in pink, a la Christo--than ensuring women are able to access exams for early detection of breast cancer.  In a word: Politics.

Follow Jodi Jacobson on Twitter, @jljacobson

Sometimes people need a reminder that there is more to reproductive health than caring for a pregnancy.

Now Rick Santorum isn't "pro-life" enough to be president?