'Alarmed and saddened'

Have you seen crime dramas where the police start to close in on a killer? In the 1930s, the gangster would say, "You dirty rats, you'll never take me alive." In 2012, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which has taken so many unborn lives, issues a press release expressing "deep disappointment in response to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation's decision to stop funding breast cancer prevention, screenings, and education at Planned Parenthood health centers."

Here's today's news: The Komen foundation is notifying Planned Parenthood affiliates that it will not give them more money for breast cancer programs. Clearly, this does not reflect any change in Komen's attitude toward breast cancer. It does reflect a realization that contributions are fungible, so that cash sent to one program is an aid to Planned Parenthood's moneymaker, abortion—and abortion is losing its mainstream support.

Komen contributed $680,000 to Planned Parenthood last year. In the short run, Planned Parenthood can make up part of the difference. Its press release quoted Amy and Lee Fikes: Their family foundation has just granted Planned Parenthood $250,000 so it "can continue to put the real needs of women ahead of right wing ideology."

Some of the "right wing ideology" came from Life Decisions International, which includes the Komen foundation on its "boycott list" of companies and organizations that support or collaborate with Planned Parenthood. Last month Lifeway Christian Resources recalled pink Bibles it had sold because some of the money generated for Komen was being routed to Planned Parenthood.

In its report Tuesday, the Associated Press quoted Komen spokeswoman Leslie Aun: She said the cutoff results from the charity's newly adopted criteria barring grants to organizations under investigation by local, state, or federal authorities. According to Komen, this applies to Planned Parenthood because it is the focus of an inquiry launched by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., seeking to determine whether public money was improperly spent on abortions.

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said Stearns' probe is politically motivated. She expressed dismay that it had contributed to Komen's decision: "It's hard to understand how an organization with whom we share a mission of saving women's lives could have bowed to this kind of bullying. It's really hurtful."

Hurtful? How about the unborn children who, as Dr. Bernard Nathanson showed, silently scream—and the mothers who feel that hurt for the rest of their lives?

Listen to a report on the Komen foundation's decision on WORLD's radio news magazine The World and Everything in It.