Thursday, February 2, 2012

Money Talks

Without getting into a debate over abortion, I'd like to share an experience I am having today.  This morning as I perused Facebook (like I do every morning) I was inundated with articles about the Susan G. Komen Foundation's defunding of Planned Parenthood.  The Komen Foundation is a non-profit powerhouse.  People give money to the foundation all the time without even knowing it.  They are synonymous with breast cancer and beast cancer awareness.  To protect their ability to remain that way, they found a somewhat politically correct way to stop funding breast exams at a controversial clinic.

This makes me sad.

I know where I stand in the abortion debate and it has nothing to do with the majority of the work done by Planned Parenthood.  They provide low cost or free care to women who otherwise would be unable to get it.  That preventative health care saves lives.  That is why insurance companies pay for it.  It works.  And every one deserves access to it.  For women without insurance, Planned Parenthood helps close that gap.  To allow the abortion debate to limit a woman's accessibility to preventative health care is unacceptable.

This makes me mad.

Then I had a thought.  What if every time I got ticked about an injustice in the world I donate $5 to the victim?  Or an organization working to stop the injustice?  What would that do?  I don't know.  I know that I can afford $5.  With the internet I can also find and donate money to just about any organization on the planet.  I've boycotted organizations for practices that I don't like (Exxon for most of the 90s, for instance), but I've explicitly never put my money somewhere in response.  So I made a a donation to Planned Parenthood.  Moments later I read that donors had replaced the money denied them by the Komen Foundation.

This made me hopeful.

3 comments:

  1. thanks for sharing!

    Hope you will visit my blog and enter my GIVEAWAY!
    Just Tututiny

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  2. I came over to look at your 29 Day Challenge (excited to see your progress on that) but noticed this post. I was just talking about the Planned Parenthood/Susan G. Komen connection with a friend who told me her MOPS group had refused to support a race even though one of their members has Stage 3 breast cancer because of the link to PP. Uggh.
    Great solution to this ridiculous hooplah; thanks for posting.

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    Replies
    1. You're welcome! Thank you for sharing your story. It makes me sad that the abortion debate has wrongly impacted so many worthy causes (having nothing to do with abortion). I was worried about posting this on a public blog as I didn't want to incite a riot in my space, but the impact of noticing and giving amazes me. I really do wonder what the world would look like if everyone donated just a little to the causes they yell about all the time.

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