Category Archives: Issues

There have been plenty of articles over the past few days over the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s decision to stop giving grants to Planned Parenthood for cancer screenings, mammograms, and other life saving treatment that low income women across this country depend upon. While I find this decision appalling, I’m going to defer to the authors of those articles rather than write another piece myself.

Instead, I want to focus on an aspect of this scandal that has been largely overlooked: the blatant hypocrisy of the decision. No, I’m not talking about the hypocrisy of right wingers demanding that the Komen Foundation cut off funding for life saving treatment in the name of being “pro-life.” I’m also not talking about the hypocrisy of creating a rule for the explicit and sole purpose of cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood, and then blaming said rule for not being able to fund Planned Parenthood.

No, I want to focus on their inconsistent and hypocritical application of this rule. For those in the back, the Komen Foundation created a rule in December barring funds to organizations under local, state, or federal investigation. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) has recently launched a base-less and politically motivated investigation into Planned Parenthood’s funding, specifically to determine if they illegally use federal funds for abortions (which, as it has been well documented, they do not).

Meanwhile, the Komen Foundation continues to maintain a relationship with a corporate partner that IS under investigation from multiple governments. I speak, of course, of their partnership with Bank of America. Over the past three years, Bank of America has donated over $2.7 million to the Komen Foundation through their pink-ribbon credit cards. Does this seem a little strange to anyone else? Take it away, Georgia Logothetis:

Yes, that’s the same Bank of America that is “currently under a local, state or federal formal investigation for financial or administrative impropriety or fraud.” Here’s a sampling of what Bank of America is facing:

• In New York, Bank of America is being investigated for “fraudulently steered homeowners into overpriced insurance policies.”
• In California and Nevada, Bank of America is under investigation for “foreclosure fraud and other wrongdoing in the mortgage markets, including the packaging and selling of mortgage-backed securities by Wall Street players and scams by smaller players offering to help troubled borrower.”
• In Arizona, Bank of America is under investigation for its loan modification practices.
• And, of course,  the federal government’s new mortgage crisis unit will be investigating Bank of America’s conduct leading up to the real estate crisis.

If that were the end of the hypocrisy, that would be one thing. But it’s so much worse than that. Bank of America, inarguably, played a role in creating the Great Recession. With high levels of unemployment also comes a large number of people without health insurance (at least until Health Care Reform fully kicks in). And without health insurance, it is incredibly difficult for women to afford preventative care like breast cancer screenings and mammograms. See where I’m going with this? So instead of cutting ties with a corporation that had a large role in a recession that actively (and possibly irrevocably) harmed women, they defunded an organization that provides cancer screenings to low income women, a service in increasing demand because of the aforementioned recession.

The cognitive dissonance makes my head hurt.