Planned Parenthood raises $3M for breast care services in wake of Susan G. Komen flap

CBS

Planned Parenthood has raised an eye-popping $3 million since Tuesday to support its breast cancer preventive services, the organization said Friday -- a silver lining for the organization after controversy erupted surrounding some its funding from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

The Komen Foundation announced on Tuesday that it was adopting a new policy that would have made Planned Parenthood ineligible for grants. But after facing a strong backlash against their decision, the cancer charity said Friday it was changing its policy so that Planned Parenthood is once again eligible for grants.

As Planned Parenthood supporters learned of the Komen's decision on Tuesday, they flooded the organization with donations and took to the Internet to express their outrage. The Komen Foundation has maintained the decision was not political, but Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said Friday, "If there's any lesson in all of this, it's that women and people in this country want preventive care, and they don't want politics to get in the way."

The $3 million in donations for its breast health care fund will allow Planned Parenthood to "expand our breast care work beyond our wildest dreams," Richards said.

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Planned Parenthood typically receives between $500,000 and $700,000 a year from the Komen Foundation for breast cancer screenings and preventative education. In an official statement Friday, Richards said Planned Parenthood has a "treasured relationship" with Komen -- a charity that has played a significant role in raising the national awareness of breast cancer risk, screening and treatment, and thus, has saved countless lives. Richards said that Planned Parenthood helps Komen in particular with reaching out to under-served communities like low-income women, minorities and women who live in rural areas.

Planned Parenthood currently provides clinical breast exams to more than 700,00 women every year, and Richards said 100 percent of the $3 million in donations will go to maintain and expand its breast health services.

Richards said that more than 10,000 people contributed to Planned Parenthood in some way since Tuesday, and that the supporters were "a very wide ranging group and a lot of folks we had never heard from before."

Richards said there was an "outpouring of personal stories from patients" who have used Planned Parenthood services and that those stories reached a broad audience via social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

"The intimate nature of social media and the ability of folks to communicate across all lines, I've never seen anything like it," she said."I absolutely believe the explosion on Facebook and Twitter drove a lot of coverage on mainstream media as well."

[franknkissy]

Well today standing in front of Planned Parenthood in Wilmington, Delaware - its No Trespassing signs displayed everywhere - I eerily imagined these were not small unborn chlldren being brought to be eliminated ....but rather full-grown Pennsylvania Steel Workers ....oh so much for imagination !!

[franknkissy]

Well today standing in front of Planned Parenthood in Wilmington, Delaware - its No Trespassing signs displayed everywhere - I eerily imagined these were not small unborn chlldren being brought to be eliminated ....but rather full-grown Pennsylvania Steel Workers ....oh so much for imagination !!

[hhandyman]

Bad news travels fast and far and people with hearts make the good news happen.. its too bad that it happened that way but when you bring it to the mind of the public generally they have a good heart and not every one agrees with the Extreme Right view of life Not all occasions are cut black and white but often are at best a shade of grey and 3% black and 97% white is very light grey. the slam on that group is as if it was 60percent black and 40 white which is a shade darker than half. Political agendas are fine in the political arena but in life in general in a constitutional basis the pursuit of happiness for some is perceived badly by others Remember Patrick Henry said...I may totally disagree with what you have to say but i will defend till my death your right to say it

[SDTrueman]

Respectfully Ms. Condon - there's a whole bunch of folks out here who don't exactly see a "reversal" in today's announcement by SGK Foundation. A real reversal would mean that they are guaranteeing that PP will get the $650K funding they been receiving every year previous to this. No, what we're hearing in this non-apology apology is "we'll let them be eligible again, and 'we'll see' if PP gets the grants they used to get." That's not a reversal. But, this quibbling over "reversal" or not may be moot. There's a whole bunch of people who are now "done" with the SGK Foundation. It remains to be seen whether or not the organization can recover from such a devastating self-inflicted wound.

[delayne]

touche (sp)?

[mjb89]

Power to the people!