If you’ve followed the news on the Susan G. Komen for the Cure controversy lately, you know that it has been getting a lot of flak. The foundation had been sending funds to Planned Parenthood to finance breast-cancer screenings and decided not to send further funds while Planned Parenthood is under investigation. Many people have expressed a lot of outrage.

My wife, Rena Henderson, is a breast-cancer survivor and is active on the Susan G. Komen website. She wanted to write what follows below on that website but she decided that there’s no point in doing so because the volume and nastiness on that site are too high. Lots of name calling, lots of people refusing to think about what others are saying, etc. So she posted it on Facebook. I read it and decided that it’s worth posting here. It hits some themes that I’ve discussed in the recent past. Here it is:

Yes, the free and/or low-cost breast cancer screening that Planned Parenthood has provided, in part through grants from the Komen Foundation, is very valuable. I wish Komen had not withdrawn its funds, although I don’t know what else they plan to do to help uninsured/underinsured women get potentially life-saving screening. Hopefully something good. However, I don’t understand the narrow vision people have–i.e., that, somehow, Planned Parenthood is the only option. Granted, it’s the best known and probably the most easily accessed. But there ARE other options. I just Googled “foundations that provide funds for breast cancer screening” and found many that I’d never heard of. In my own community, we have the Carol Hatton Memorial Fund. I donated to it yesterday. Why not find out if your community has such a fund and do the same? In the old days, we depended on the generosity of individuals. These days, we seem to expect either the government or one large organization like Komen to do it all. I wish the people who are spending their time flooding the Komen message boards and preventing women with breast cancer from getting the support they need would shut their mouths and open their wallets. If you can’t afford a lot, then give a little. And for crying out loud, do a little research!