If a professional organizational man or women were in charge then they would understand the entire dynamic and thus lie and deflect in a professional manner. Poor Brinker was left to tell what she thought was the truth about an alternate reality which she believed in and the result was sad.

Any crisis communication person knows you don’t put an amateur in front of a camera or anywhere in sight under such circumstances. That is the only lesson here. Since the amateur organizational leader is dying out this isn’t really much of a problem. The individual speaking their own mind is the antithesis of institutional savvy. If you want to be somebody today then you have to be an organization man, a company man. Where lying is expected. Where when you lie everyone knows you are lying and doesn’t hold it against you because that’s your job.

And just for the sake of making this comment thread complete:

Hitler, Hitler, Nazi, Nazi, Nazi….

Tedious indeed.

It doesn’t pass the sniff test to act like Planned Parenthood is just another charitable organization giving free healthcare to underserved populations. Only people with a pro-choice perspective would characterize Planned Parenthood in such neutral terms.

Why should a characterization by those with a pro-choice perspective be automatically inaccurate? One can be pro-choice and pass a sniff test at the same time.

Planned Parenthood does over 300,000 abortions a year. That means about one out of every four abortions in this country happen at a Planned Parenthood facility.

The ghettoization of abortion services, concentrated in a few facilities, rather than being generally available as part of ob/gyn in the healthcare system as a whole, is a consequence of the success of pro-life activism and the cowardice of many hospitals. Planned Parenthood cannot be held accountable for the failure of others to stand up to pressure.

Not only that, Planned Parenthood’s annual budget is about one billion dollars per year. About 30-40% percent of their revenues come from abortion services. Thus there is a major financial incentive within Planned Parenthood to keep their abortion business going. Planned Parenthood is the main engine of abortion in America, and there can be no moral or political neutrality towards this organization.

Indeed. The futility of the quest for neutral ground around the Culture War politics of abortion is the point of this entire thread. Komen’s untenable pretense that its decisions were made in a politically neutral fashion was the origin of its disaster.

Failure to acknowledge this is evidence that one has already taken a side on what continues to be one of the most divisive issues of our time—abortion on demand.

Precisely. Komen’s failure to acknowledge that it was taking sides when it pulled its funding for Planned Parenthood led almost everyone to assume that it was taking sides, the pro-life side.

By the way, Planned Parenthood only received about $680k from Komen last year, a fraction of a percent of its 1 billion dollar largesse. Yet from Planned Parenthood’s aggressive response to Komen, you would think that Planned Parenthood’s existence were in jeopardy by the denial of these grants.

No, what was in jeopardy was Komen’s standing as a good-faith partner, involved in all aspects of women’s healthcare, including reproductive healthcare.

But the actual numbers suggest a different story. Planned Parenthood’s take-down of the nation’s leading breast cancer charity was not about money or women’s health; it was about abortion politics.

Komen’s self-inflicted wound was not about money or women’s health. It was about abortion politics.

For many on the left, abortion rights are sacrosanct, and they will allow no one to tread on their sacred ground.

It is surely more apt to use the words sacrosanct and sacred to describe the worldview of the pro-life movement.

Planned Parenthood and their allies in congress and the press have shown that they are willing to destroy a venerable charity just to make the point.

As for venerability, Komen, founded in 1982, cannot hold a candle to Planned Parenthood. Margaret Sanger’s first clinic was started in 1921. Komen has not been destroyed, merely discredited.

Cheers — Tyndall

The fact that abortions are legal seems to be irrelevant to them. They want only to prevent abortions and care little to nothing about unwanted children being born. At that point it’s the mother’s problem and their work is done.

I don’t understand why you are giving up on dialogue. I’m not. It seems that we ought to be able to engage one another charitably even if we don’t see eye to eye and even if we end up disagreeing with one another. I don’t feel like we are talking past each other. I just think we disagree.

Thanks,
Denny

“So I am entirely cynical about this exchange. I don’t think it has anything to do with real dialogue. It’s simply waging culture war via comment thread.”

Planned Parenthood: very very bad. We get it. Bye.

Princeton University Professor recently wrote a column for WSJ that gives up to date figures. He has the 300,000 number and estimates that Planned Parenthood gets about $164 million dollars a year from performing abortion services. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204369404577206692451108960.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

These numbers aren’t hard to find.

Denny

Try to get your facts straight as opposed to straight from various pro-life organizations or simply made-up.

“30-40% of their revenues from abortion services” really? Please cite a credible verifiable source.

“does 300,000 abortions a year” really? Are you counting the ingestion of a birth control pil or use of a contraceptive as an abortion? Please cite a credible verifiable source.

BTW: Komen is well on its way to destroying itself for having pandered to and succumber to the pro-lifers. That will be them slowing sinking under the waves and from view in the years to come.

What’s interesting is that Komen could have slowly gotten out of its PP relationship by saying that it wanted to eliminate pass-through entities and fund screening facilities directly. However, that would probably have affected other pass throughs, so it initially rested on the “government investigation” defense which also hasn’t held up as it has been unequally applied.

I understand the counter that money is fungible, but I think that is intellectually dishonest in the context of directing one’s contributions. It’s like buying breakfast for a street person rather than giving him/her money. You have arguably cleared up cash for her/him to now use for drugs or drinking (or shelter), but the alternative is to do nothing.