It is sad when an organization who is doing good work helping people in need decides to attack another organization doing similar work over a disagreement. It is always best for such organizations to look for common ground and work together to achieve those goals. Many churches in my area and nationally do this all the time. They operate joint food banks, they collaborate on sex education curriculum, they come together to fight those who wish to denigrate those who look differently than those who consider themselves the masters and everyone the peasants.
So it was a bad day back in February of 2012 when the Komen Foundation declared war on Planned Parenthood. Up to this time Planned Parenthood and Komen had cooperated to proved health screenings. Sure there may have been some disagreement, no one agrees on everything, but among many in Texas this was seen not only as an abdication of the mission of Komen, to help people, mostly women, survive breast cancer, but also an attack by the privileged to deny care to those most in need, using the cover of abortion to protect themselves from the backlash. It was a cowardly act, analogous to storing munitions in a school.
Given the extreme right wing hordes that want to control the US, it was unclear who would exit this situation most damaged. It was not a matter or winning or losing, when a respected organization declares war on another, both are going to be damaged. It is clear that Komen is in fact teetering on the brink of irrelevance.
The latest news is that 2014 Race for the Cure is to be canceled in seven major venues; Washington, San Francisco, Arizona, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland and Tampa Bay. But this is not the whole story. The participation in the mall in Washington has been dropping since 2011. In 2011 it reported that 40,000 people participated. In 2012 the participation was 27,000, essentially a 1/3 drop in participation. In 2013 only 21,000 people participated, almost a 50% drop over two years.
Of course, being a conservative mouth piece, a Koman spokesperson say that the decline is due to bad economic conditions. The reality, though, is that the economy was worse in 2011. We just exited the recession and unemployment was at 10%. The Dow Jones was just recovering from it's low below 8000, while now it is above 1500. So the economic explanation makes little sense. The economy is doing better and Komen is doing worse.
Even the Dallas race at Komen Central, has shrunk. Between 2011 and 2012 it saw a reduction in fundraising of 15% and a drop in participation of over 10%.
This is interesting because Komen was putting on a much braver face in over the past year. It seemed that they thought they had overcome the storm. Now it appears they not only have been permanently injured in the incident they created, but that injury may ultimately be fatal, even in a conservative Texas. It might be good for conservatives to take note. We may put social concerns over our pocketbook, but when it is clear that some public figure doesn't really care if we live or die, that often trumps everything.