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Beginning this June, Planned Parenthood will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from a national foundation committed to the prevention and treatment of breast cancer. The foundation says that’s because Planned Parenthood is the subject of a Congressional inquiry. WNPR’s Neena Satija reports on how that will affect the services it provides here in Connecticut.
For the past six years, Planned Parenthood of Southern New England has received a total of $160,000 in funding from the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. It’s a very small portion of the organization’s $26 million annual budget, but President and CEO Judy Tabar says it allows Planned Parenthood of Southern New England to provide crucial services to women who need them.
TABAR: “With the help of Komen, Planned Parenthood of Southern New England has provided screening and referrals for nearly a thousand mammograms in the past six years to women who could not otherwise afford them.”
The funds also support educational outreach programs in which health care workers from Planned Parenthood go out into communities to teach women about breast cancer prevention and treatment. Such programs will be tested when the funds disappear in June, and Tabar says the women affected the most will be the poor and uninsured.
TABAR: “This will mean that these women will not be able to get payment for their mammograms, at least through Komen.”
Tabar said Komen officials have declined to meet with Planned Parenthood’s national president. The Komen Foundation did not respond to a request for comment, but told the Associated Press it can no longer give grants to organizations that are subject to governmental investigation. Planned Parenthood is now on that list because it’s being investigated by Republican Congressman Cliff Stearns of Florida.
For WNPR, I’m Neena Satija.
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