(WOMENSENEWS)–Nancy G. Brinker may have reversed her decision to cut Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s funding to Planned Parenthood, but she can’t reverse what the event exposed: close ties to the GOP agenda of eliminating women’s access to contraceptives and abortion.
A sneak preview of that came in January at a star-studded gala in Palm Beach, Fla., that showed both Brinker’s GOP stature and close ties to the forces arrayed against women’s health. One of the donors was Tim Tebow, Denver Broncos’ superstar quarterback. He donated an autographed helmet and jersey to the silent auction.
Tebow became an overnight hero of evangelical anti-choice during Superbowl 2010 when he appeared in a TV ad with his mother, who resisted having an abortion when she was pregnant with him. The voiceover encouraged viewers to visit FocusOnTheFamily.com, a top anti-choice movement organization.
Donald Trump, GOP presidential wannabe, reportedly placed the winning, $12,000 bid for the Tebow paraphernalia at the event attended by Florida’s Gov. Rick Scott and his wife, Ann Scott.
Brinker is a Republican of long standing.
She served as an ambassador to Hungary during the George W. Bush administration and traveled to the Middle East with Karen Hughes, Bush’s best friend at the time. Brinker was the one who hired Karen Handel, as the charity’s vice president for public policy, until she quit Tuesday. Handel ran for governor of Georgia last year and was openly anti-choice.
Brinker founded the charity in 1982 after her sister, dying of breast cancer, asked her to find a cure for the disease that was responsible for her death. Thirty years later, her Pink Ribbons are the national and international symbols of "awareness" of breast cancer.
The apolitical purity of all that pink may now be permanently stained.
Permanently Stained
The Atlantic posted news on its website Jan. 31 that Komen was stopping its annual grants to the Planned Parenthood Federation of American.
Within four days, Komen’s board reversed the decision and Handel became the designated sacrificial lamb.
In the interim, Planned Parenthood raised lots of money, gathered piles of good publicity and tons of new donors.
Komen got blasted via Facebook, Twitter and news organizations. It lost face, donors and the support of many of its staff and volunteers.
One experienced Dallas public relations professional told me that Komen, based in Dallas, will not be able to recover from the uproar. Komen went overnight from being seen as a hero for many women to becoming the evil empire of women’s health.
An unpublished research study finds that of all the philanthropic dollars that go to aid U.S. women, 58 percent goes toward health and 38 percent of that portion goes to breast cancer.
Health charities’ federal filings can detail how well that money is being spent. A comparison of this 2009 data for Komen and Planned Parenthood shows the latter group spends a far greater proportion of its donations–72 percent–on the women it’s supposed to serve.
Komen, by contrast, spends only 55 percent on its programs.
To express those figures in another way, Planned Parenthood spends 28 percent of its donations on itself while Komen eats up 45 percent.
A Luxury
The organization’s public documents indicate that Brinker works 55 hours a week for no compensation, a luxury afforded by being married to the owner of Chili’s restaurants, Norman E. Brinker, from 1983. (The couple divorced in 2003 but Norman Brinker stayed involved with Komen until his death in 2009.)
Komen is the behemoth among women’s health charities. In federal filings the group reported that in 2009, the most recent year for which data was available, it raised $135 million, although it lost several million via fundraising events. In 2009, Planned Parenthood Federation raised $81.4 million and spent $59 million in program expenses. CEO Brinker was paid $417,712 in 2011; Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood’s president, received $354,716 in the fiscal year ending in June 2010, according to Reuters.
If Komen loses money on events, how does Komen raise so much for one disease?
The answer is corporate partnerships–that don’t lose money.
On its website, Komen lists members of its Million Dollar Council Elite and Million Dollar Council. They include Conde; Nast Publications, owner of Self magazine; Ford; American Airlines (now in bankruptcy); General Mills, owner of Cheerios and other cereal brands; Caterpillar, the world’s leading manufacturer of construction, mining and farm equipment; Walgreens; New Balance athletic shoes; Yoplait Yogurt; Belk stores; and Zeta Tau Alpha sorority (its 215,000 members collect Yoplait lids).
Since the ruckus over Planned Parenthood, Ford has taken out paid ads on Twitter saying the fight against breast cancer should not be politicized.
Zeta Tau Alpha sorority said in a recent website posting that its national council and foundation board would evaluate at a meeting at the end of February "what initiatives, partnerships and sponsorships are most effective in this important fight against breast cancer."
Enter Planned Parenthood
Of the $74 million that Komen gave out in 2009 grants, much went to medical research at universities throughout the country. The remainder went to education and a handful of programs providing low-income women with breast-cancer screenings.
Enter Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood’s mission is to provide a range of health care to women, including breast-cancer screenings, Pap tests, sexually-transmitted disease treatment, contraceptives and abortions. Komen grants about $650,000 per year to Planned Parenthood to provide about 170,000 breast exams and 6,400 mammogram referrals. Although mammograms and biopsies are referred out, Planned Parenthood doctors manage their patients’ cases.
These are all figures that typically remain buried below the surface of polite conversation about breast cancer. It’s healthy to get them out on the table for value-minded donors to consider.
Breast-health guru Dr. Susan Love directly challenged Komen’s mission in an essay published Tuesday in the New York Times. The founder of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation argued that Komen has it all wrong. We should not be racing for a cure, Love wrote, but for the cause of breast cancer–which is in part what her foundation does. She also suggested other organizations to which Komen donors might contribute instead.
Now that Brinker’s loyalties are clear and her power trimmed, maybe the public is ready to have an open discussion not about pink ribbons or cures but how the nation gets serious about the best route to improving the health of the nation’s women. And maybe others will hesitate before signing onto the Republican anti-abortion, anti-contraception campaign strategy.
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Rita Henley Jensen is editor in chief and founder of Women’s eNews.
