BreakPoint

BreakPoint: The Pink Ribbon Campaign

You’ve seen them everywhere: pink ribbons and wristbands to raise awareness about breast-cancer prevention. But before you donate, find out where the money is going. Susan G. Komen for the Cure, formerly known as the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, is a big promoter of the pink ribbon campaign.  It raises money for breast cancer detection and research, and it awards grants to many worthwhile programs. But as the Life Issues Institute points out, “In a counterproductive twist, Komen is also funding a group that actually promotes a possible cause of breast cancer.” The cause? Abortion. The group? Planned Parenthood. According to Life Issues Institute, in at least 22 states, Komen affiliates send donated money directly to Planned Parenthood--$3 million dollars over the last five years. This money frees up Planned Parenthood’s own funds for other purposes—such as promoting the morning after pill and performing abortions. Komen for the Cure denies the abortion-breast cancer link. But many studies seem to confirm it.  For instance, Dr. Joel Brind, an endocrinologist and founder of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, found that “choosing to end a pregnancy through an induced abortion, especially the first pregnancy as a teenager, significantly increases breast cancer risk.” Dr. Janet Daling, a cancer epidemiologist who supports legal abortion, says, “I would have loved to have found no association between breast cancer and abortion, but our research is rock solid, and our data is accurate.” And in 2007, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons found that women who have an abortion increase by 40 percent their risk of breast cancer. Many Americans who buy those pink bracelets may not be aware of the strong Links between Planned Parenthood and the Komen foundation. Komen founder Nancy Brinker once served on the advisory board of Planned Parenthood of Dallas. One Komen Advisory Board member, Eve Sanchez Silver, resigned when she found out how just how strong the link was between Komen and the nation’s Number One abortion provider. Shockingly, Silver says the Komen Foundation’s “Concern for the health of women is now parallel to Planned Parenthood’s concern for the health of the children that they abort.” Those are strong words. The Komen Foundation also endorses embryonic stem cell research, which kills human embryos. Odd as it may seem at first glance, the link between abortion and breast cancer is evidence for the truth of the Christian worldview. The scriptures teach that murder is wrong in God’s eyes, including the murder of those who are being knit together in their mother’s womb. We should not be surprised to learn that abortion, which involves a sudden disruption of the mother’s natural physical processes, carries with it the seeds of destruction for mothers, as well. If you want to support breast cancer research—a very worthy cause--check out the Polycarp Research Institute or the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute. But before you donate to any organization, do your own research. And when you see people wearing those pink ribbons, tell them that you like raising awareness of breast cancer, but caution them that they’re funding an outfit that may actually be increasing the breast cancer rate: Planned Parenthood.

Further Reading and Information

Life Issues Institute - Serving the Educational Needs of the Pro-Life Movement www.lifeissues.org | Abortion and Breast Cancer The Polycarp Research Institute www.polycarp.org Breast Cancer Prevention Institute www.bcpinstitute.org

10/28/10