October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and men and women clad in pink will gather to mourn, celebrate victories of healing, and express solidarity in their goal to eradicate breast cancer by participating in Susan G. Komen Foundation-sponsored races to fundraise for this worthy cause. Susan G. Komen, however, compromises its own mission to find a cure for breast cancer by associating with Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider.
Texas Right to Life urges Susan G. Komen Foundation to stop sponsoring Planned Parenthood immediately and to start benefiting real health clinics for women. Furthermore, Texas Right to Life calls on Pro-Life individuals to boycott the Susan G. Komen Foundation and its 'Race for the Cure' until Komen severs all ties and affiliations with Planned Parenthood.
Many studies have linked an increased risk of developing breast cancer after an abortion, yet both Susan G. Komen and Planned Parenthood deny the risk abortion poses to breast health. Elizabeth Graham, the director of Texas Right to Life, says that Susan G. Komen's partnership with Planned Parenthood is deceiving and troubling. While Komen has duped the public as a leader in breast cancer awareness and research funding, by linking arms with Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider, they defeat the purpose of fighting breast cancer.
According to the most recent data available from the Guttmacher Institute and Planned Parenthood, Planned Parenthood committed over 25 percent of all abortions in the United States in 2008, a total of 324,008 abortions. In that same year, they performed zero mammograms. Graham commented, “Komen is racing to find a cure while supporting an agency that increases the occurrence of breast cancer. An organization devoted to ending breast cancer and improving women’s health can hardly do so while supporting an abortion giant.”
One example of this medical and ideological confusion can be found right here in Texas. Susan G. Komen of Dallas has awarded Planned Parenthood of North Texas $92,800 this year for breast health education materials and 650 mammograms for low-income and uninsured women. The website for Planned Parenthood of North Texas offers “free mammography services” to eligible women, yet investigative phone calls to each North Texas Clinic reveal that isn’t true. After a consultation at Planned Parenthood, mammogram clients are referred to real mammogram clinics. Planned Parenthood, with funds from the Komen grant, pays for the mammograms but does not actually perform them.
Texas Right to Life believes that women would be better served if the Susan G. Komen Foundation benefited legitimate health centers and research programs that actually perform mammography services. Funneling money through an abortion business in no way fights or decreases breast cancer, but rather undoes any progress that may have been accomplished by Komen.
The National Breast Cancer Foundation, the Vera Bradley Foundation, and the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute are organizations focused on breast cancer research and are not involved with abortion or Planned Parenthood.