The decision by Susan Komen for the Cure to end financial support of breast screening by Planned Parenthood was a public relations disaster for the organization. Many women didn’t like it. The decision has supposedly been set aside and the officer responsible for it, an anti-abortion Georgia politician, has left Komen.
It is now left to local affiliates to try to clean up and make amends with once-fervent supporters. Susan G. Komen for the Cure Arkansas is among those at work on rehabilitation, with the letter below to its past supporters expressing regret for “an error in judgment at our national office.” The Arkansas group has never made grants to Planned Parenthood, however.
The letter from Sherrye McBryde, the Arkansas affiliate’s executive director, follows: