Meet Karen Handel, the new face for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.
Handel is a failed politician, a right-wing extremist who lost her 2010 bid to become governor of Georgia while running on a campaign that blasted abortion rights and gay rights and took particular aim at Planned Parenthood (she was endorsed by both Sarah Palin and Jan Brewer; egad!). So did she then fade away in deserved irrelevancy? Of course not. In modern America, disgraced parties always seem to rise Phoenix-like from the ashes — heck, even the vile G. Gordon Liddy snagged his own radio show — so it’s really no surprise that last year a major organization picked her as its new vice president. What’s shocking is that the group was Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, an organization that enjoyed a long relationship with Planned Parenthood as both fought for the rights and health of women.
- AP
- The heinous Karen Handel
Well, no more. As of yesterday, SGK has decided to cut all ties to Planned Parenthood, announcing that it will no longer fund grants for breast exams. This maneuver, which hurts all women but most particularly poor ones (a favorite target of GOP politicians), was spearheaded by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), but Handel’s fingerprints are also clearly all over this thing.
This isn’t the first time that SGK has stirred controversy. Some of its partnerships have raised eyebrows, specifically those with companies known for offering unhealthy products (Kentucky Fried Chicken, for one). Many have criticized its marketing hooks, such as the frivolous and, let’s face it, sexist “Save the Ta-Tas” and “Save Second Base” campaigns (click here for a great essay about this). Even Creative Loafing had the wisdom to previously question this group, in a cover story from 2003.
Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation, tried to schedule a meeting with SGK officials before all this came to pass, but she was given the cold shoulder, with the outfit not even bothering to respond to her requests. In a statement e-mailed to its members, Richards wrote:
It’s a deeply disappointing decision — made even more alarming because politically motivated groups and individuals determined to undermine women’s access to care appear to have successfully intimidated the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation to withdraw this critical support. Over the past five years, Komen funds have enabled Planned Parenthood health centers to provide nearly 170,000 clinical breast exams and referrals for more than 6,400 mammograms. These cancer detection and prevention programs saved the lives of women who often had nowhere else to turn for care.
We know our opponents put their ideology over women’s health and lives. What we never expected is that an ally like the Komen Foundation would choose to listen to them.
(Read the whole e-mail via one woman’s blog here.)
As expected, while many misogynist men and subservient women are applauding this decision, more enlightened sorts are not. There’s been a huge outcry against the politically motivated act, and you can get involved.
To make a donation to Planned Parenthood, go here
To protest on the Susan G. Komen Facebook page, go here.
To join the Boycott Susan G Komen Foundation Facebook page, go here.
To voice your displeasure to SGK’s corporate sponsors, go to this Facebook post for a list of all the companies. (SGK took down the sponsor page on their own website — cowards! — but someone wisely copied it before it was gone.)
To send a pre-written letter to SKG (courtesy of Daily Kos), go here.
To sign a petition (courtesy of change.org), go here.
- Credit: http://ihavebreastcancerblog.wordpress.com
This article appears in Jan 31 – Feb 6, 2012.
Ah, once again the pro ‘choice’ people show what they really are: Pro Abortion. Seems like the SGK foundation made a choice and now they are disliked because of it.
No surprise really from the pro..er..’choice’ advocates. Evil, you are a sick individual to think that someone who is against the murdering of the unborn is evil. More relative morality from the no-choice pro abortion crowd.
Judy…I tried to “like” your comment but it wouldn’t INCREASE. When I tested the “dislike” it moved UP without a issue and the “likes” DECREASED by one. Typical liberal left-wing emotional B.S. Ever notice how it’s always “anti-abortion” and NOT “pro-life”????
No one is pro-abortion #1 and you are not pro-life, you are pro-fetus! As soon as the baby comes out you and your kind refuse to support and social programs that provide assistance for them.
Umm nobody is pro-abortion. We are, however, pro-women, which pro-lifers do not seem to be. This whole thing has nothing to do with abortion, it has everything to do with the fact that poorer women now do not have access to the resources that they had before.
I am so proud that the foundation will no longer support abort
ins. will now send them donations. I don’t give to other org. that support abortions either. I f you have ever see an abortions you will understand my comment
I have a great great greatson
8 moths old who still curls his little toes because they tried to get rid of him in the womb and he backed up as far as he could to get away. this is what happens to a so called “fetus” when an abortions is performed. there are many clincs besides PPH to obtain free paps and mamograms.
Thank you for reading this.
“I have a great great greatson 8 moths old who still curls his little toes because they tried to get rid of him in the womb and he backed up as far as he could to get away.”
This might be the dumbest thing I have EVER read on this blog. LOTS of babies naturally curl their toes (adults, too!).
How does SGK cutting ties with PP for breast exams “hurt all women”? There are millions of women who get breast exams without SGK, PP, or a loser wastoid dork who can’t get a job doing anything more productive than watching “Transformers 27”.
PS: SGK hired Handel in April, so it looks like you stoner wastoids are about ten months to late with your blood-spitting apoplexy.
What I have said was verified by the Dr. sorry if I spepped on you toes
“I have a great great greatson 8 moths old . . .” What does that even mean? A “greatson”? What the hell is that? And “8 moths old”? Did the kid catch 8 moths, did he eat 8 moths? And have they seen a doctor about the child’s obsession with moths?
Seriously, who besides other political retards (Mallard, someone’s calling your name), even take these extreme conservative types of comments seriously? How about some remedial spelling, people? On 2nd thought, no – keep on being your semi-literate selves, it’s more fun that way. And, um, Mallard? Read Brunson’s article again, especially the part where he mentions that Handel the Terrible was hired by SGK “last year.”
“stoner wastoids”? Next, you’ll be telling those “damn hippies” to get off your lawn.
And “loser wastoid dork”? Sounds like someone’s jealous he’s not working for Creative Loafing. Also explains why he posts asinine (and misspelled/grammatically incorrect) comments here a lot.
Thanks for writing, Mallard. I will be certain to let you know when I review Transformers 27, as, based on your comments here on The CLog, that’s the sort of film that would appear to target your intellectual capabilities.
Cheers!
It’s becoming clearer that the Republican party and the conservative movement are now targeting all forms of family planning. That’s too bad for many reasons, one of the main ones being that consistent use of birth control is by far the best way to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and is therefore the best way to prevent abortions. And Planned Parenthood is the best source for information about family planning. So why would the organized conservative movement want to stop the best way to prevent abortions, which is birth control, if they’re against abortions?
Because they really don’t give a damn about stopping abortions, regardless of what they say. What they want is, (1) political power; and, (2) controlling women and their reproductive rights. Right-wing evangelicals never cared one way or the other about abortion until the Religious Right realized they could get power by creating an alliance of anti-choice Catholics and evangelicals.
After 2010, many of us thought all those Republican governors and legislatures going on an anti-choice crusade was just a passing thing. Sadly, it isn’t. It’s the centerpiece of conservative strategy.
And there’s something else that everybody should be aware of: the US Conference of Catholic Bishops is going to make a major push against birth control using a “religious liberty” argument. That is, they say it is their religious right to deny their non-Catholic or secular employees birth control in their health plans. The Obama administration has decided against them–and as a result, the Bishops are preparing to come out against Obama using this same “religious liberty” argument.
Catholic women who use birth control can and hopefully will plan a major role in the upcoming struggle. They can help by publicly saying that it isn’t anti-Catholic to be for family planning. It will be dirty, because we now know that conservative enemies of choice use defamation, innuendo and dirty tricks. But it’s time many of us get a little bolder, because the writing is on the wall. An ignorant, hateful, fanatical coalition wants to take away family planning and reproductive rights for women in America, and I’m afraid we had better prepare for the fight. Family planning and choice is not just one cause for progressives in 2012, it’s the main cause!
https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Fire-Kar…
SRL you are right about the likes and dislikes. Proud Nannies comment had 4 likes and 6 dislikes. I clicked on like and it instantly changed to 2 likes 17 dislikes. How incredibly deceptive. I should have known better considering the site.
And here I just tested a couple of them and had NO problem with the Likes and Dislikes (even going back and forth on the same comments, they always changed correctly for me). I hate to say it, but I think some people just have problems working the Internet. cough ** SRL ** cough ** Kimwed **
I would like to chime in about the Likes and Dislikes issues people are commenting on. I have also tested this on both our back end and the site that you all see. @Kimwed, I suspect the reason it changed for you like that was because there are a lot of eyeballs on this page currently and others may have also clicked at the same time so when your page refreshed, you were seeing that reflected. If anyone else runs into this issue, please do let me know. Desiree.Kane@creativeloafing.com – Desiree Kane, Online Content Editor
forget about testing likes and dislikes. let it be known i fully intend to boycott every event the Komen organizations has in my area for their action against Planned Parent Hood. Handel, know that the proverbial target is place on your position at Komen and future career. We will seek to make sure your connection with Komen ends as soon as possible.
Perhaps the folks at Susan G. Komen got a look at the 100 plus fetus’s at the Cook County morgue and got sick to their stomachs. I know I did.
This is how it works. Planned Parenthood (PP) takes money from a donor. The donor believes that money is being used for one thing (ex: early detection of breast cancer). But in fact, PP is using the money to fund abortions. Then they take Federal $$ and use it for early detection of breast cancer because they are not allowed to use that money for abortions. Then when their Federal Funding is threatened, PP cries it will cut such activites as early breast cancer detection and millions of women will die. It’s a money shuffle that allows PP to use Federal Money to perform abortions.
No, THIS is how it works, Poleinthehead, so read closely. I know this is really hard for some so-called pro-lifers to grasp, but there are many, many Americans who don’t live all bubbled-in and comfy in your right-wing subculture — and who support Planned Parenthood for all the services they render, including providing abortion services for women who need them. Those PP supporters give money to the organization willingly and enthusiastically, and usually BECAUSE Planned Parenthood provides the full spectrum of women’s reproductive health screenings and services. It’s just ridiculous to claim that PP gets donations by “hiding” the fact that a small (very small, by the way, like in the 3% range) portion of their funds go toward providing abortion services. You really need to get off the Beck/Limbaugh/Fox tit, guy.
Brunson and Grooms make specious arguments belied by facts. Anyone with a little research skill can enlighten themselves with real information to see past PP’s nicely paneled front reception into the back room where things are not so tidy.
So, stop pissing on my leg and telling me it’s raining. PP is to abortion as Margaret Sanger is to eugenics as Nazi doctors are to Nazi medicine. PP is about two things; abortion and money…all 1 billion dollars of it. They oppose parental consent laws because that threatens the money stream. They oppose abstinence programs because it competes with their abortion business model. So spare us all the tendentious blah blah that PP is about “women’s health” and freedom…that’s bilge. PP’s own annual reports and fact sheets show that abortion represents closer to 12 percent of their services not 3 and this is because they unbundle everything they do and hide the cost differential…pregnancy tests, birth control pills, condoms, STD tests, et al., are billed as separate services and visits costing 30 times less than an abortion even if they all happen during the same visit. Throw in much more expensive surgical and chemical abortions and the percentage is much more than 12 percent. Congress should damn well be trying to account for how the money it gives to PP is being spent because money is fungible. It certainly frees up money elsewhere to pay for doctor’s salaries, equipment and supplies that make all abortions possible. Never mind the fact that PP clinics routinely use fabricated, unscientific medical information about fetal development trying to convince unwitting low-income women to have an abortion…cha-ching$$. Never mind that PP has been caught willing to protect and advise predators and pimps guilty of under-age sex slave trafficking…again cha-ching$$…You didn’t hear about that from the PP shills on the nightly news. Much like how you’re not hearing now about how Obama took a big dump on the Constitutional rights of religion and conscience guaranteed by the first amendment to private religious institutions. Tyrants always rise to power in the beginning through the legitimate levers of government, then start dismantling them. Better wake up free-thinkers, you are content to stand by when its the rights of the opposition being gored, but what will you do when its your rights? Stare into the abyss too long and it begins to stare back.
I applaud SGK for trying to sever its ties with PP in order to put their money where its most effective, not with PP pass-through services. But PP and its sycophants showed themselves to be the completely intolerant, hard-left hate wing fanatics that they truly are…militant totalitarian feminists upon whom the gleaming spectacle of irony is lost when it comes to gangsterism and the application of political pressure. “They hate women. They’ve turned evil,” and “poor women will suffer.” A billion dollars later? Hardly. Talk about poisoning the well! Hundreds of people said, “I’m taking my check elsewhere!” Good! Its great we live in a country where they still can make that choice. Its just too bad that these same people deny SGK the same choice and resort to hacking their websites to spew personal vitriol instead.
Dislikes only please…it shows I’ve made a good swift kick to the lies PP hides behind.
“Dislikes only please…it shows I’ve made a good swift kick to the lies PP hides behind.” Methinks someone thinks too highly of themselves.
So you “applaud” SGK for crawling into bed with ill-advised partners like Kentucky Fried Chicken, that tainted perfume line and most incredibly, Smith & Wesson handguns simply for the purpose of fattening its own bank account; trivializing the impact of breast cancer through cutesy campaigns; and bullying every other group that has dared try to use the word “cure” in their name or ads?
If you think this severing of ties was anything but political, you’re an absolute imbecile.
“militant totalitarian feminists” This tells me everything I need to know about the viewpoint of a guy named Tony.
Too good not to share.
“We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that resulted in completely unexpected scrutiny of our CEO’s unconscionably high salary, obscenely high overhead to actual good ratio, longstanding links to Republican politicians, huge budget for taking oppressive legal actions against other charities that dar…e use …the word ‘cure,’ vast marketing and lobbying budgets, and long-standing history of secretly lobbying against federal assistance to women with breast cancer.
Based upon the last ten years, we truly had no idea that we couldn’t do whatever the hell we wanted with gullible contributors’ money. We thought that the corpse of our CEO’s sister was an impenetrable shield that protected all of our actions from scrutiny or accountability. We appreciate your support while we try to figure out WTF has changed.
However, although the sudden spike in scrutiny and precipitous drop in fundraising and sponsorships scared the crap out of us, we want to assure all of you that, even as we desperately attempt to salvage something out of the conflagration burning our brand to the ground, we will continue to flat-out lie to your face and generally assume you are all still such credulous imbeciles that we can shamelessly stick to obvious falsehoods or change our story from minute to minute as whim or panic dictate.
Now please stop looking into our finances, lobbying and legal activities and strong political connections with right wing politicians. Stop it right now or Susan will be angry, very angry with you. Thank you.”
I guess now an organization can be FORCED to DONATE.
I USED TO HAVE HIV,,,AND I WORK WITH THE U.K ARMY……I LOOKED FOR CURE ALMOST ROUND THE WORLD,NOT UNTIL I CONTACTED A GREAT SPIRITUALIST,I NARRATED MY PREDICAMENT TO HIM,I WAS SHOCKED HE SAID”NO CAUSE FOR ALARM”’I SEND HIM MY PHOTO,,,,HE SAID HE WILL NEED TO BUY SOME ITEMS,AND I PAID FOR IT…AFTER THREE DAYS HE TOLD ME TO GO FOR TEST AGAIN,…… MY FRIENDS YOU WON’T BELIEVE IT WAS NEGATIVE….NOW I’M SOUND AND HEALTHY STILL WORKING WITH THE U.K ARMY . I BELIEVE HE CAN CURE ANY TYPE OF SICKNESS HIS EMAIL ADDRESS IS:hivspelltemple@outlook.com
REGARD
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