When the Susan G. Komen Foundation reached out and asked me to post information about the Global Race for the Cure, I promised to help. I had completely forgotten to write about it until I saw their newsletter this morning.

The 21st annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Washington, D.C. will be tomorrow morning. Per the organization’s newsletter, late registration is still open today from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency on the Hill.

The race kicks off tomorrow morning at  7:30 a.m. with opening ceremonies on the National Mall.

Awareness of breast cancer is an interesting topic. Many companies have been accused of pink-washing to get a coveted pink ribbon on their packaging. For example, is it good for KFC to promote breast cancer awareness when obesity increases cancer risks?  It’s also hard to track where all the money goes. So many huge organizations are raising money to fight cancer. How do you ensure accountability?

The Komen Foundation passed on local facts:

Last year, the race raised $4.7 million for local education and community outreach programs that work tirelessly to assist vulnerable populations.  Some organizations that received grants this year include: Whitman-Walker Clinic on 14^th Street, Food and Friends, Georgetown University and Sibley Memorial Hospital.

There has been some controversy over the Komen Foundation funding grants for Planned Parenthood, which is explained here. Given their history and priorities, I would love to see Planned Parenthood close down its doors throughout the country. They are the main source of reproductive health care in many rural and low income neighborhoods and do provide services besides abortion. Quite simply, Christians have neglected to fill this gap in services, so Planned Parenthood stepped in to fill a legitimate need. It doesn’t make the entire organization less reprehensible, but I have no issue with the Komen Foundation fulfilling its mission by funding organizations with the capacity to help.

Unfortunately, there are many murky political issues that surround cancer research. Those should be examined and are important. However, when you watch a relative slowly waste away from cancer that should have been detected early or watch someone struggle through chemo, it changes your perspective. I think the Komen Foundation has tried to address this issue and respect both sides while fulfilling their goal.

Anyone with a loved one facing the Big C understands the need to do something about it. I’m not a research scientist or a nurse. I can’t help patients with cancer or find a cure for the disease, but I can donate money and raise awareness of programs that are helping patients and searching for a cure.

The groups are divided over whether the Senate bill allows for federal funding of abortions. Status quo, as dictated in the Hyde amendment, bans taxpayer funding of the procedure in programs such as Medicaid, except when the life of the mother is at risk or in cases of rape or incest.

Members of the Pro-Choice Caucus say that they don’t like the Senate bill because it requires women who want an insurance policy that covers abortions to pay for the abortion coverage entirely on their own and send two separate checks to cover premiums.

The line, women who want an insurance policy that covers abortions to pay for the abortion coverage entirely on their own and send two separate checks to cover premiums, makes my blood run cold.

The Pro-Choice Caucus infers that there are women out there who pro-actively pay for abortion insurance. Insurance is an economic decision to invest in services that you will possibly need. When you opt into getting a specific policy, you are acknowledging that the odds are against you. For example, if you live on a mountain, are you likely to get flood insurance?

Women who opt for this coverage would make a premeditated decision thinking, “It is likely that I will get pregnant unexpectedly. If I do, I want to abort any child that I conceive.”

Perhaps I’m naive. I’ve always believed that even those who support abortion view it as a worst case scenario. Lately, the left has managed to shock me by endorsing abortion with glee. It’s as though pro-abortion advocates are shouting, “Who cares if abortion is murder? I’m ok with that. In fact,  I’m going to be a cheerleader for it because a woman’s “right” the most important factor. To hell with everything else.”

Just look at Feministing’s response to Mary Ann Sorrentino, former Planned Parenthood executive director in Rhode Island, when she questioned Angie Jackson’s live tweets of her abortion.

Sorrentino’s piece reads like she’s telling Jackson to be ladylike, to be a “good girl.” There are certain things a woman just shouldn’t speak about in public. This isn’t the feminism of a previous generation – it’s an argument that the divides between public and private should be maintained, with women’s experiences kept in the private sphere. It’s an argument for silence, for stigma, and for an appropriate way of being a lady.

This goes against the approach to destigmatizing abortion that I learned from pre-Roe organizers. The Redstockings Abortion Speakout in 1969 began a traditional of women telling their abortion stories publicly to humanize the procedure, to bring it into the public sphere, and to remove shame. These women didn’t listen when they were told their stories should be kept private. Jackson used new technology to share the experience as it was happening, a new twist on an old consciousness raising technique.

In removing the stigma of abortion, feminist forces aren’t justifying this debate, they’re celebrating it. They are reveling in this legal right regardless if it is good for women. Forget the gory details and pain that Angie Jackson’s tweets revealed. She’s raising the collective consciousness of womankind! To hell with anything else. As long as the feminist agenda is advanced, nothing else matters.

Anyone else sickened by this?