hunting for cherubs

The decision of your organization to end your partnership with Planned Parenthood and to defund the breast screenings of thousands of women is a distinct reflection on the cowardice of your leadership and Komen Foundation’s utter lack of regard for the health of all women. As an organization that claims to “save lives, empower people, and ensure quality care for all,” I can’t help but notice the blatant disrespect for your own mission in the ending of your partnership with Planned Parenthood.

As a woman who was fortunate enough to have been under my family’s healthcare plan when I found a lump in my breast 2 years ago as a 21-year old, I am lucky and privileged to have had the coverage that paid for a series of ultrasounds and ultimately the breast biopsy that would determine whether or not that mass was cancerous. It pains me to think that an organization that claims to have the best interest of women at heart would so recklessly abandon the thousands of women who do NOT have easy access to breast screenings and proper healthcare by defunding Planned Parenthood, an organization that is asset to women everywhere and provides a vital service in the detection and treatment of breast cancers. 

Your company policy claim as reasoning for this asinine defunding is the unfortunate rationalization of a decision that has the potential to hurt the very women you claim to be serving. If you are going to regard investigations as proper cause for ending partnerships without carefully considering the motives behind these investigations, you are appeasing politicians at the cost of the health of women and publicly demonstrating your distrust in women to be the sole proprietor’s of their bodies. I want to advocate for organizations that will support me in all decisions related to my personal and reproductive health, not organizations who cower in the face of controversy. Cancer does not care if you are pro-choice or anti-abortion, but apparently Komen does.

(yes, i actually emailed this and commented on nancy g. brinker’s facebook)