Opinion: Komen Flap Shows Breast-Cancer Charities’ Fundraising Focus

In cutting off Planned Parenthood grants to placate one group of donors and reinstating them to mollify another, Susan G. Komen for the Cure exemplified the extent to which raising money dominates the operations of major breast-cancer charities, an educator and author writes in the Tampa Bay Times.

Deni Elliott, who holds a chair in media ethics and press policy at the University of South Florida and is working on a book about cancer advocacy, notes that the Web sites of the 10 wealthiest breast-cancer groups “provide multiple ways to donate, participate in fundraisers, or consume for the cure” and extensively promote their efforts to raise awareness, but they offer little or no information about where women can get mammograms.

“Many wealthy charities promote raising money over providing services, but rarely is the public provided such a blatant opportunity to think about the imbalance” as with the Komen flap, Ms. Elliott writes.

A new poll suggests the controversy damaged the Komen foundation’s national standing, says the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

In a survey of 1,000 American adults, conducted by independent agency Public Policy Polling for liberal Web site the Daily Kos, 53 percent of respondents said they opposed the charity’s decision to drop Planned Parenthood grants, while 39 percent supported it. Fifty-three percent said the flap hurt the cancer charity’s image, and 49 percent said they would be less likely to give to Komen, against 29 percent would be more likely to do so.

Among those supporting Komen’s initial stand is Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney, who said Monday that the charity should not give money to Planned Parenthood, the Associated Press reports. Appearing on a conservative radio show, Mr. Romney said the government should defund Planned Parenthood as well.