As several readers have pointed out in the comments to our Leading Off item this morning, Nancy Brinker finds herself in an odd position with today’s news. Brinker is the CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which has pulled its funding from Planned Parenthood because — purportedly — Komen has a new policy that prevents it from supporting organizations that are under investigation. Which Planned Parenthood is. Read about the Congressional investigation here. Maybe it will turn up something. But many say it’s just a politically motivated ploy orchestrated by anti-abortion forces.
No matter your beliefs about the abortion debate, you’ve got to wonder how Brinker is handling the ordeal. Because not only is she the CEO of Komen, she also supports Planned Parenthood. As recently as last year, she sat on the advisory council for Planned Parenthood of North Texas (warning: link opens PDF). And, as KomenWatch has noted, in 1996 Planned Parenthood gave Brinker its Gertrude Shelburne Humanitarian Award, an honor that KomenWatch says is often omitted from Brinker’s CV.
What Brinker has here, I believe, is a sticky wicket.
