'Planned Parenthood took breast cancer victims as hostages'

Planned Parenthood's new abortion center in St. Paul

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, professors Robert P. George (Princeton) and O. Carter Snead (Notre Dame) discuss the controversy over the recent effort by Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a breast cancer charity, to withhold future grants from Planned Parenthood, the nation's #1 performer and promoter of elective abortion.

The reality is that Planned Parenthood—with annual revenues exceeding $1 billion—does little in the way of screening for breast cancer. But the organization is very much in the business of selling abortions—more than 300,000 in 2010, according to Planned Parenthood. At an average cost of $500, according to various sources including Planned Parenthood's website, that translates to about $164 million of revenue per year.

So how did Planned Parenthood and its loyal allies in politics and the media react to Komen's efforts to be neutral in the controversy over abortion?

Faced with even the tiniest depletion in the massive river of funds Planned Parenthood receives yearly, the behemoth mobilized its enormous cultural, media, financial and political apparatus to attack the Komen Foundation in the press, on TV and through social media.

The organization's allies demonized the charity, attempting to depict the nation's most prominent anti-breast cancer organization as a bedfellow of religious extremists. A Facebook page was set up to "Defund the Komen Foundation." In short, Planned Parenthood took breast-cancer victims as hostages.

In my earlier post, I offered five reasons why it makes little sense for Komen to entangle itself with Planned Parenthood. George and Snead expound on some key details:

Among Komen's reasons for discontinuing grants to Planned Parenthood was its policy of avoiding entanglements with entities under government investigation. Planned Parenthood has been and is under congressional and criminal investigation (by attorneys general, local prosecutors and various regulatory agencies in Arizona, Indiana, Alabama, Kansas and Texas) for allegations including failure to report criminal child sex abuse, misuse of health-care and family-planning funds, and failure to comply with parental-involvement laws regarding abortions.

Planned Parenthood is very far from the uncontroversial organization the Susan G. Komen Foundation aspires to be. According to its most recent annual report, for 2010, Planned Parenthood sells abortions to nine out of every 10 pregnant women who come to its clinics. And it's known throughout the country as an implacable and aggressive opponent of any meaningful restrictions on deliberate feticide.

Planned Parenthood has spent millions fighting even those legislative initiatives that command extremely wide public support, such as laws requiring parental notification and informed consent for abortions, and those banning late-term abortions when the child developing in the womb is fully viable. Planned Parenthood even opposes a bill recently introduced in Congress to ban abortions for the purpose of sex selection.

It is easy to see why Komen might not wish to be associated with Planned Parenthood. Fighting breast cancer is something all Americans can and do agree on; promoting and performing abortions is something that divides us bitterly.

Finally, George and Snead track Planned Parenthood's recent history of ruthless money-grubbing:

While Planned Parenthood's target in the Komen case was new, its tactics are not. In the past two years, we have seen the abortion giant (and the politicians it funds) hold for ransom a diverse array of hostages.

In 2010, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress risked and narrowly averted the rejection of their signature health-care law in order to block the inclusion of provisions (such as the 1970s Hyde Amendment) that prevent federal abortion funding. At the 11th hour, a handful of "pro-life" Democrats capitulated, giving Mr. Obama and Planned Parenthood their victory.

Last year, in April, Mr. Obama risked a government shutdown over language in a resolution that would have defunded Planned Parenthood at the federal level. At the last moment, congressional Republicans gave way and allowed the federal money to keep flowing.

Also in 2011, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services threatened to withhold billions of dollars in Medicaid funds from those states such as Indiana that prohibit state funding of Planned Parenthood and other entities that provide elective abortions. Planned Parenthood strongly opposed Indiana's attempt to cut off its funding and celebrated the federal government's intervention. Indiana is currently litigating the matter in federal court. ...

Breast-cancer victims are only the latest hostages taken by Planned Parenthood. Unless the organization is finally held to account, they will surely not be the last.

Other commentators have also written thoughtfully and insightfully on the Komen/Planned Parenthood controversy, including Kathryn Jean Lopez, Mona Charen, Ross Douthat, Jennifer Rubin, Mark Steyn and Kathleen Parker.