BREAKING NEWS!!!
Those of you who have been reading here for a while know that, while I support breast cancer research, I’ve discouraged any support of the Susan G. Komen Foundation. This is because they have, for years, been supporting Planned Parenthood financially.
For a little while they defunded Planned Parenthood. (Yay!) Unfortunately, they caved to the pressure (what pressure, I’m not sure, as I’m told they got twice as many calls from us as from our opponents) and have begun funding Planned Parenthood again. (*sigh*)
I’ve written about this in the past, and some of those older, more thorough, posts are probably showing up at the bottom of this one so you can check them out if you’re interested, but let me just hit two highlights of why I find this a problem.
1) They can say all they want that the money is going to breast cancer screening, but it will still help fund abortion. Why? Because every organization has a budget. If $10 is allotted to abortion and $10 is allotted to cancer screening, and you send $5, even if it’s earmarked for cancer screening, they will divert $5 of other funding from cancer screening to abortion instead, to be sure they’ve met their budget.
Even more so, if the budget is more like $10 for cancer screening to $1000 for abortions. (It is very, very clear that this is going on with Planned Parenthood, by the way, since in the past most of the money “for mammograms” was going to centers that don’t even do them. Which, as I understand it, is most of them.)
2) There’s a massive conflict of interest here. Planned Parenthood encourages lifestyle choices that increase the risk of breast cancer (and other female cancers), while discouraging lifestyle choices that decrease the risk of breast cancer. If you really want to decrease breast cancer rates, you stop paying people to lie to women about these things.
(It really angers me that, as many magazine articles as we see about breast cancer and how to decrease your risk, they never, ever talk about childbearing and breastfeeding, even though those are proven to decrease your risk. Politics and “political correctness” are clearly more important than women’s health, here!)
So there you go. If you think it’s important to ensure that low-income women get mammograms, I would suggest that the most effective way to do that is to go to the local mammography clinic and offer to pay for someone’s mammogram.
Thank you for posting this. I just read an article in Christian Counseling Today magazine. The article says that 52,008,665 preborn children were aborted in 2010. This saddened my soul.
Thank you for enlightening us about the this topic. I will certainly redirect my funds.
Lisa
Most unfortunate, I happened to stumble across this blog.
Haha, and WHAT absolute [expletive removed] you toss around. You DON’T increase the risk for breast cancer by using birth control pills, and most certainly NOT by not having a baby, or having an abortion. People get breast cancer even when plopping out children and breast feeding. People get abortions without getting breast cancer. There doesn’t occour cases of breast cancer more often in the adult population without children.
Such pathetic Christian propaganda.
Sincerely,
a medical student
I find it frightening that anyone in training for a science-based career (especially one where people entrust their health to you!) is unaware of the distinction between an increase of risk and direct causality.
Yes, people who have babies and breastfeed get breast cancer. Absolutely. (My aunt was one.) No one is denying that.
Yes, people have had abortions and not gotten breast cancer. I’m not denying that, either.
However, it has been clearly demonstrated that bearing more children, and breastfeeding longer, decrease the risk of breast cancer. And, while the jury’s still out on abortion, there is some evidence to suggest that having an abortion may increase the risk of breast cancer. Anyone who is truly concerned about women’s health should be concerned with whether women are getting all of the information relevant to their health, or just what those who profit from abortions and birth control sales want them to hear.
Of course I’m aware of the distinction between a very small increase of risk and causality. I’m not stupid.
However, you say that, and I quote:
“Planned Parenthood encourages lifestyle choices that increase the risk of breast cancer (and other female cancers), while discouraging lifestyle choices that decrease the risk of breast cancer”
PP do not encourage lifestyle choices that INCREASE the risk of breast cancer. This statement is untrue and comes across as “Mathilda can’t talk. Rocks don’t talk. Ergo, Mathilda is a rock”. I’m not from the US, so I don’t know the state of sexual education in your schools; however, PP teaches people about birth control and support women in a choice about their bodies and own lives. There are no supported causal links between birth control or abortions and breast cancer. You are basically saying “The risk of breast cancer can in some people be ensmallened by breast feeding -> PP isn’t pro-life -> Ergo, PP ’causes’ breast cancer”. Crudely put, of course, but you should be bright enough to see the point I’m making.
By all means, I am aware of the benefits of breast feeding. On the other hand, breast feeding isn’t a cure for cancer, just like avoiding mobile phones (radiation) or not eating blue candy (90s phenomena where they believed blue candy could slightly increase an already low risk of getting cancer) aren’t ways to get immune either. Now, let it be clear that I would advise that people don’t soak themselves in radiation! That would be a rather silly thing to do. Nor would I ever encourage a patient to get loads of abortions (however, I would not base my advice on whether or not she could by a 0,0001% increase the risk of breast cancer). People has the right to know that there are health benefits accompanying breast feeding, just like there are with changing their diet, excersising and all that jazz.
My point is, if it wasn’t clear already, that you obviously don’t see your own very untrue causal conclusions. To turn the tables/coin/whatever: Heaps of women die under childbirth. Therefore, pro-life people encourage lifestyle choices that increase the risk of dying [giving birth]. Now, that argument… sounds sketchy, doesn’t it? Just as silly as saying that PP encourages lifestyle choices that increase the risk of getting breast cancer, getting your house burnt down, drowing, getting murdered, et cetera…
FWIW, I’m pretty darn good at giving my patients all relevant information, and I always give them information about significant and scientifically supported risks, just as I inform them about benefits. I’m not a bad med. student just because I fully support women’s right to decide over their own bodies and life. 🙂
(Nor would I earn any money to support pro-choice, as abortions are free of charge where I’m from. We don’t have a higher percentage of women with any kind of cancer nor anything you might want to link to having an abortion)