Months before the nation’s largest breast cancer charity announced they were defundng Planned Parenthood last week, an internal committee had recommended that the organization continue funding Planned Parenthood.
A Washington Post report based on interviews with with former employees at Susan G. Komen for the Cure reveals that the the arrival of VP for Policy Karen Handel in 2011 raised the urgency on the question of whether to continue funding Planned Parenthood. In the spring of 2011, the board formed a subcommittee tasked with reviewing their relationship with Planned Parenthood. They determined that the funding should continue as is.
The panel based its recommendations on the effects that defunding would have, and the publicity it would create, reports the Post. They determined that cutting funding entirely would harm poor women and that scaling back funding would compromise their grant program and fail to assuage critics. Separately, their communications director warned cutting funding would result in poor publicity.
On a conference call in the Spring with the board subcommittee, Handel argued for defunding Planned Parenthood but the conclusion reached was to maintain funding. The recommendations of the panel were obviously reversed in the November board meeting in which a plan to defund Planned Parenthood was approved, though the reason for the reversal remains unclear.
