Madison Barnes
Morgan Chesbro
English 200
2 March 2012
Is Conservatism Indeed the Cure?
(INSERT ATTENTION GRABBER/STATS HERE) Although the foundation has achieved all these great things, it appears that the foundation itself has had conflict separating healthcare from politics for quite some time. At the beginning of February of this year, Komen announced they would cut (insert money amount) of funding to Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides preventative healthcare to those women who may not be able to report it. The announcement quickly ignited a firestorm for the public and conservatives and liberals alike blew up every media outlet in response.
Alan Moore founder and editor of a website titled “Moore Common Sense” which is a self-proclaimed right-wing websites whose motto states “Conservatism is the cure”. He is also a former press secretary for a presidential campaign and has written hundreds of blogs, all with his conservative political view. Moore stands behind the foundation’s decision in an editorial entitled, “Susan G. Komen Cuts Off Funding to Planned Parenthood”. I believe Moore’s support of the foundation’s decision was intended to promote non-conservatives to analyze the situation and agree with his views, but I found his claims that Planned Parenthood doesn’t allocate it’s funds correctly, doesn’t even provide mammograms, and that abortions cause breast cancer to not measure up due to lack of credibility and his obvious bias and political opinions.
Moore’s first claims starts out by attacking Planned Parenthood’s “sordid past”, which according to Dictionary.com, translates to a “morally ignoble, meanly selfish, dirty, filthy, squalid, wretchedly poor” past, which in my opinion is quite a strong accusation for a foundation that’s saved millions of women’s lives. (INSERT MORE) ( want to add info on how planned parenthood spends money and helps women and families)
Moore also comes out of left-field when he makes a claim that the organization doesn’t deserve the funding because “they don’t even provide mammograms”. He even goes as far as linking a video into the article that shows an undercover woman making phone calls to Planned
Parenthoods in twenty-seven different states and all of them referring them elsewhere to receive the treatment. While Moore may be correct in that all Planned Parenthoods don’t have access to a mammogram machine in their building, this is almost a half-relevant fact. Over the past five years, Planned Parenthood health centers with Komen program funding have provided nearly
170,000 clinical breast exams to minority women (Planned Parenthood). Not only is Planned
Parenthood providing this many breast exams, their staff is providing potentially the only healthcare and information about breast cancer and other women’s health issues that these women may receive due to socio-economic status.
Moore’s last claim in support of Komen removing the funding is absolutely hysterical.
He claims that since Planned Parenthood provides abortions, and abortions cause breast cancer, that funding shouldn't be wasted on an organization that’s continuing the cycle of breast cancer by performing abortions. Moore’s support of this fact is a link he’s added in his editorial to a website entitled www.abortionbreastcancer.com. Now isn’t it a widely known fact to never make believe a “.com” website is a scholarly source? You would think a well-known columnist would be aware of this. But then again, maybe he’s counting on his readers to not follow the link and just believe whatever he says? Fortunately for me, I don’t believe everything I read, so I did my research on the issue.
According to a study done by the National Cancer Institute, which just so happens to hold an official “.gov” website, just in case you were questioning the credibility, I quote “Induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk. (1)” (Summary Report). Also, in case you were wondering, the “(1)” at the end of the quote is a number given to represent the strength of evidence on a scale of one to four. One meaning “well established” and four meaning
“suggested from laboratory or theoretical considerations but essentially unevaluated in human populations”. Again, this adds to my counter of Moore’s claim that abortions cause breast cancer, which is quintessentially causing a cycle of abortions and breast cancer.
(Need to add a conclusion!)
Works Cited
Planned Parenthood. Alarmed and Saddened by Komen Foundation Succumbing to Political
Pressure, Planned Parenthood Launches Fund for Breast Cancer Services. Planned
Parenthood, 31 Jan. 2012. Web. 27 Feb. 2012.
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"sordid." Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 26 Feb. 2012.