Life

Komen Folds, but the Race Isn’t Over

Thousands take part in Komen?s Race for the Cure. Image by Getty Images

By Jane Eisner February 3, 2012

We just heard that the Susan G. Komen board of directors reversed course and will continue funding Planned Parenthood after all. “We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives,” Founder and CEO Nancy G. Brinker said in a statement released from Komen’s Dallas headquarters.

It was a stunning admission by an organization that was bombarded with angry complaints over the move to drop Planned Parenthood — supposedly because of a change in Komen’s grant-making criteria. But the political motives were just below the surface, and it was difficult not to come to the conclusion that Komen cut off Planned Parenthood because it is the women’s health organization that the right now loves to demonize.

This abrupt turn-around was surely caused by the fury unleashed on the Internet, and that is both a civic wonder and a scary thought. Since I was one of the ones infuriated by Komen’s initial decision — expressed in this editorial — I’m relieved and proud that the voices with whom I agreed had this kind of impact.

But will I feel so thrilled if the subject was something I abhorred? If the fury was unleashed in a less inviting direction?

My other concern is more specific. I don’t exaggerate when I say that reproductive rights are being slowly, deliberately lost in this country, as those who do not believe in abortion are doing their best to narrow women’s access to what remains a legal right. They are winning in state legislatures and other arenas because they care so passionately.

Will those of us who support a woman’s right to choose within the wise framework delineated in Roe v. Wade maintain that same passion?

Jane Eisner was editor-in-chief of the Forward from 2008 to 2019.

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