What Really Happened at the Komen Foundation

by Austin Ruse
 

The clean sweep at the Komen Foundation is finally complete. A few days ago Komen founder Nancy Brinker finally lost her job as CEO. It took a while but they finally got rid of her, the woman who watched her sister suffer and die from breast cancer, who dedicated her life to eradicating the disease, who created one of the most successful global health charities in the world. They removed her for the crime of trying to defund Planned Parenthood. She’s being replaced by a woman some say had a hand in developing Obamacare and who has never run a non-profit.

She was the last of the triumvirate who had the audacity to try and get Susan G. Komen for the Cure out of the culture wars around abortion.

The first to go was Karen Handel who was head of global marketing for Komen. She received the initial blame from the left. Though she voluntarily resigned, she was the fall guy. Handel subsequently wrote a very readable book about it and is now running for the U.S. Senate from Georgia. Second to go was Liz Thompson, who at the time two years ago was President of Komen.

Since they are all gone completely or from day-to-day operations, it is time to tell some tales from the inside of that failed effort. I know quite a bit that has never been revealed until now. Top Komen people came to me in the summer of 2011 to ask my advice on how to step away from Planned Parenthood funding and how to communicate this, in fact how to orchestrate such a move with the pro-life movement.

They came to me because I know pretty much everyone in the pro-life movement, how many of them think, and how many would react to such a reality, that Komen would withdraw funding from the pro-life bête noir, Planned Parenthood.

For years pro-lifers pounded Komen for its support of Planned Parenthood. It made no sense to pro-lifers that Komen, a breast cancer charity, would fund an organization whose essential work in performing abortions that can increase the risk of this deadly disease. And it was an increasing frustration for the millions of pro-life Americans who “raced for the cure” but could not in good conscience continue. Campaigns against Komen by pro-lifers were running all over the country. When Komen President Liz Thompson first came to my office she said, “fully 50% of my time is spent in dealing with” pro-life boycotts of Komen fundraising.

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Austin Ruse is president of C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute), a New York and Washington DC-based research institute focusing on international legal and social policy.