In honor of breast cancer awareness month...

I figured that I should repost "Komen Connection" with a few added pieces of info and links.

With the onslaught of everything from ambiguous facebook statuses to pink toasters to NFL players sporting pink shoes, people need to be aware of where their money is going. Susan G. Komen representatives have recently stated that Komen has donated over $7.5 million to Planned Parenthood in just one year! This is a substantial amount of money even if it is only a small fraction of what Komen receives in donations. Check this out.

Also, as I mention below, Komen denies the breast cancer abortion link, but this article from Jan. 2010 shows that it was politics that drove the denial of the link in an often quoted National Cancer Institute study.

Now to be clear, breast cancer research and prevention is a wonderful thing, and if you want to donate money to a worthy organization working to educate women about preventing breast cancer check out the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute.

Here is the original post from 8/10/10:

I found out over a year ago that Susan G. Komen donates money to Planned Parenthood, and for this reason, our diocese issued a statement saying that Catholics should not participate in any of the Komen breast cancer walks. I also never buy any of the pink breast cancer merchandise because most of the time I am never sure if it is supporting Komen or not.

Then, last year, a dear friend of mine friend participated in one of the Susan G. Komen three day walks in memory of her aunt who died of breast cancer a couple of years ago. She sent out an email to raise money so that she could participate, and I was faced with a dilemma. I decided to take the easy way out and simply ignore the email rather than discuss my concerns with my friend. I was worried that it would be an emotionally charged conversation, and I elected to avoid it. I felt like I was letting her down since she had a personal stake in what she was trying to do, butI just wasn't comfortable donating money when I wasn't sure if some of that money might end up in the hands of the abortion industry. My friend never mentioned it, and she did raise the $1800 necessary for her to participate in the walk.

Then, a year later, over this past weekend, she mentioned the walk, and she and my other friend had a long discussion about the overall experience and how powerful something like that is, etc. I finally gathered my courage, and stated my concerns about where the money was going, and I was met with a matter of fact response that the money was specifically going to Planned Parenthood for breast health services, and that it had nothing to do with abortions. She also said that most of the concern was based on rumors, and she said that one diocese even apologized for jumping to conclusions.

I didn't really have an argument for this, but upon coming home, I did a little research of my own, and I came across some interesting information.

On the Susan G Komen website, this letter addresses their Planned Parenthood connection, and they make the case for only funding breast health services etc. However, my concern is that since Komen is funding these services, it would seem to free up money in the budget to be used for abortion and distribution of contraception.

The second half of the letter goes on to perpetuate the claim that there is no link between abortion and breast cancer. They name several sources including the National Cancer Institute, Harvard, etc, and while these names sound impressive, they fail to mention that there is more to the story.

There is evidence to suggest that the abortion breast cancer link is very real, and the studies being cited by Komen and others are flawed.

This link takes you to a story on LifeSite News with a video series that explains the link in detail. It is a very convincing argument based on basic biology and scientific fact.
The Breast Cancer Prevention Institute also has a lot of information on the link, and it put together this basic one page explanation of the abortion breast cancer link.

All that said, I think that it is an ongoing struggle to avoid supporting abortion these days. Our tax dollars are now funding them overseas, and very soon, the health care bill will be funding them in a round about way. This is all in addition to the many many companies that donate to Planned Parenthood. Chase bank, Whole Foods, Target, Nike, Johnson and Johnson, Proctor and Gamble, Bank of America, Marriott, Sonic (sorry girls...), and the list goes on....
I have patronized 6 of those companies in the last month... so am I being inconsistent by not supporting Susan G. Komen? Possibly...

However, perhaps it shouldn't, but for some reason Komen bothers me more because they are supposed to be advocates for women's health, but it seems to me that they are clearly making some grave errors in this quest.