Komen Insider’s New Book Exposes How Planned Parenthood Bullied It

by Steven Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 9/10/12 11:30 AM

Karen Handel, former Senior Vice President for the breast cancer group Susan G. Komen for the Cure is the author of a new book, Planned Bullyhood.
Hitting bookshelves tomorrow, the new book is a behind-the-scenes exposé of Planned Parenthood’s ruthless, orchestrated efforts to take down Komen in February for making a decision to revoke its funding for the abortion business.
Planned Bullyhood: The Truth Behind the Headlines About the Planned Parenthood Funding Battle With Susan G. Komen for the Cure is the title of the tome and it will be an eye-opening experience for readers. Handel was intimately involved in the decision-making process that led to de-funding Planned Parenthood and she was excoriated by the press and pro-abortion activists for doing so.
A lead-in promotional for the book set the stage this way:

In 2011, Susan G. Komen for the Cure was growing weary of the “pink” being tarnished by its health grants to Planned Parenthood (PPH), whose many controversies were fueling backlash against Komen. They wanted to remove themselves from the pro-life/abortion debate and made what they thought was a rational, reasonable decision: seek neutral ground in the culture war by severing ties with Planned Parenthood—and in turn, eliminate a major headache while opening a new, robust fund-raising channel.
Karen Handel, the organization’s Senior Vice President of Public Policy, was tasked with identifying options to disengage. In November, the Komen management and board decided to move forward.
Komen believed that they and PPH had made a “gentle ladies” pact, agreeing to part ways amicably and acknowledging that a media firestorm was in no one’s best interest. Yet, six weeks later, PPH unleashed a media campaign so viral and so seamlessly executed that it must have been in the works for some time. PPH attacked Komen against the backdrop of the Obama administration’s clash with the Catholic Church over contraception. After just three days, following hysterical cries that “Komen was abandoning women,” Komen capitulated and reversed course. Handel—a lifelong pro-life Republican who was raised Catholic—was immediately made the target. She resigned within days of Komen’s reversal. Liberals called her a right-wing Trojan horse. The pro-life community hailed her as a hero. She insists she is neither.
Why did Planned Parenthood attack? Was Komen simply a pawn in something bigger? In this book, Karen Handel finally speaks.

Because Komen’s staff and employees were spending an extraordinary amount of time responding to complaints about its grants given to Planned Parenthood – “pass through” grants that were supposedly intended for breast cancer screening and education but merely had the abortion giant refer women to other agencies — Komen made the decision to halt funding. Citing the fact that Planned Parenthood only provided manual exams and referred patients elsewhere when mammograms were indicated, Komen said it would not fund future pass-through grants to the abortion agency.
“Komen’s leaders made a decision last year to pursue higher quality grants that could produce measurable results,” says Karen Malec of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, about what happened.
“Although Komen had given Planned Parenthood millions of dollars over a period of two decades, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards was furious,” Malec recalls. “She spent the next six weeks quietly organizing a brutal political attack on her former friends at Komen.”
With the media, top Democrats in Congress, and other pro-abortion groups standing by their side, Planned Parenthood attacked Komen so heavily that, after three days of being battered by liberals and the media, Komen’s founder, Nancy Goodman Brinker, as Malec describes it, “wilted under pressure and capitulated to her tormenters.”
The book provides a hard-hitting account of what happened and Malec urges people to purchase it to see how the nation’s biggest abortion business bullied its way back into Komen’s wallet.
“Buy your copy of Planned Bullyhood today,” she said. “We encourage you to purchase additional copies for your state and federal legislators, so they can learn more about Planned Parenthood’s bully tactics.”
Today, Komen funds Planned Parenthood — despite the fact that abortion is linked to breast cancer and that carrying a pregnancy to term, especially ay an earlier age, helps reduce the breast cancer risk.
“Komen’s grants directed to Planned Parenthood represent a conflict of interest for the breast cancer group,” Malec says. “According to medical texts and medical authorities, accepted risk factors for breast cancer include childlessness, small family size, delaying a first full term pregnancy, and little or no breastfeeding. Planned Parenthood sells women abortions, abortifacient drugs and contraceptives – all of which cause women to forfeit the protective effect of full term pregnancy.”