What, on the surface, appears to be a coordinated effort by anti-abortion-rights advocates to attack funding for Planned Parenthood, exploded into a full-scale online war in the last 48 hours.
Earlier this week, the Susan G. Komen breast cancer awareness group decided to defund Planned Parenthood, cutting support for the family planning and women's health services provider because of an ongoing Congressional investigation of Planned Parenthood started by Congressman Cliff Stearns (R-FL), of Florida's 6th Congressional District.
Susan G. Komen group, pointing to a new set of funding requirements it was using, claimed that no group that was under any sort of investigation could continue to receive funding from it. Critics said that Stearns' investigation was purely political in nature, and was a "witch hunt", designed to find some reason to push for elimination of federal support for Planned Parenthood.
It has also been reported that the push to create the new funding policy at Susan G. Komen, and to remove Planned Parenthood as a grantee, was made by a new hire, Karen Handel, the Senior Vice President in charge of public policy for Komen. In 2010, Handel, a Republican, had run unsuccessfully for the governorship of Georgia. She had made her anti-abortion-rights and anti-Planned Parenthood positions well known during that campaign.
As word spread online of the Komen group's action, and especially in light of the defense of the defunding of Planned Parenthood made by the group's founder and CEO, Nancy G. Brinker, yesterday on MSNBC, the reaction on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere in social media venues, has been overwhelmingly negative for Komen's decision.
So brutal and massive was the reaction, that Komen earlier today backed down from its decision to defund Planned Parenthood, and apologized to the "American public".
Congressman Stearns did not react to the Komen reversal, but announced today he still supported the original decision to defund, and said he would continue his investigation into Planned Parenthood:
"I will continue the investigation into Planned Parenthood’s use of taxpayer funds. This oversight is necessary because of its record of fraud discovered through state Medicaid audits and its other abuses and illegal activities, such as ignoring state reporting requirements on sexual abuse."
Critics have pointed out a lack of factual basis suggesting Planned Parenthood has committed widespread abuses and illegal activities. Public funding for Planned Parenthood is prevented by law from being used for providing abortion services.
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