Komen group changes policy

Planned Parenthood fits revised criteria

Before Susan G. Komen for the Cure on Friday revised a policy that would have cut off its funding of breast cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood clinics, workers at the Baton Rouge Komen affiliate had heard plenty this week from those with opinions on the policy.

“We probably have had as many calls from people who are happy, as are upset,” Janet Dewey-Kollen, executive director of the Baton Rouge Komen affiliate, said Friday morning.

Earlier in the day, the national Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization announced that it was changing recently adopted criteria that would have affected funding for Planned Parenthood.

Earlier this week, reports about the original criteria brought unprecedented criticism of Komen, which raises funds for breast cancer research and screenings.

Friday’s decision to revise those policies may be more likely to shift the controversy than end it. Anti-abortion organizations that had been applauding Komen have begun expressing their disappointment at the latest changes. Such organizations as Care Net and Americans United for Life were among those who issued news statements critical of the latest developments.

Komen’s original criteria would have stopped funding grant applications made by organizations “under investigation.”

Planned Parenthood, which provides family planning and, at some of its clinics, abortion services in cities across the country, is being investigated by U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican, according to national coverage of the issue.

A statement released Friday by the Susan G. Komen board of directors and founder and Chief Executive Officer Nancy Brinker, says, “We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.”

It said that its earlier changes to its funding criteria were not for political reasons or to penalize Planned Parenthood.

“Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process,” the statement continues.

“We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants ...,” it said.

Dewey-Kollen said that the earlier planned exclusion of Planned Parenthood wouldn’t have affected Louisiana, as neither the Baton Rouge nor five other Komen affiliates in the state fund breast screening services through Planned Parenthood.

Also, she said, the local Planned Parenthood office never has requested funding from the Baton Rouge Komen affiliate.

There was “a hysteria out there,” she said of the earlier uproar over the expected exclusion of Planned Parenthood.

“We’re talking about 19 of 122 (Komen) affiliates that had funded breast cancer services through Planned Parenthood,” representing less than 1 percent of the $93 million that Susan G. Komen provided through grant funding in 2011, she said.

“We all have to stop and get back to all of our goals of saving women’s lives and not let it be hijacked into a pro-life, pro-choice conversation,” Dewey-Kollen said.

“First I want to say that Planned Parenthood is enormously grateful that Komen clarified” its grant-funding criteria, said Julie Mickelberry, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, which has locations in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

“The outpouring of support for women in need of breast cancer screening” has been enormous across the country, in the wake of the events of recent days, she said.

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast provides birth control, women’s health care, HIV testing, testing and treatment of sexually transmitted disease, emergency contraception and pregnancy testing, Mickelberry said.

Providing affordable care for women of all economic backgrounds, the Louisiana Planned Parenthood offices provided clinical breast exams for 4,000 women last year, she said.

Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit organization, and its Gulf Coast services are funded through various foundations and private donations, Mickelberry said.

The Komen organization’s initial funding criteria change, regarding organizations under any type of investigation, was made “because donors trust us with this money,” Dewey-Kollen said.

“We may have been overzealous in our goal to protect donor money,” said Dewey-Kollen.

“I am so protective of donor money that the original action was OK with me,” she said. “I agree that a ‘conclusive investigation’ is a better way to go,” referring to Komen’s most recent funding guidelines.

Dewey-Kollen said that the idea earlier this week that Susan G. Komen was “abandoning uninsured women” wasn’t true.

The organization would have continued to provide funding through three Planned Parenthood clinics in areas where there were no other resources for women and was looking for other resources in the communities where it would no longer fund through Planned Parenthood, she said.

“There are people all over Komen that are one way or another on a pro-choice, pro-life discussion. We should leave that at the door,” Dewey-Kollen said.

“My mission is to stop breast cancer, to raise money to do the research ... I don’t want that to be questioned,” she said.

During the 2011-2012 fiscal year, the Baton Rouge affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure granted more than $574,000 to area health organizations for 11 breast cancer-related programs within the greater Baton Rouge area, according to a statement issued by the affiliate.

Louisiana is No. 2, behind the District of Columbia, in the number of deaths due to breast cancer, yet below the national average in the diagnosis rate, the local Komen affiliate said.

That means the cancer isn’t being diagnosed early enough, it says.