Reuters: Catholic Church Pressured Komen to Cut Funding for Planned Parenthood

Here's a surprising update on the Komen-Planned Parenthood controversy of a few weeks ago: The Catholic Church pressured the Susan G. Komen Foundation to withdraw its support for Planned Parenthood, David Morgan reports for Reuters.  The quickly-reversed decision prompted uproar and the defection of some supporters of Komen, a breast cancer charity.

Morgan writes:

Internal Komen documents reviewed by Reuters reveal the complicated relationship between the Komen Foundation and the Catholic church, which simultaneously contributes to the breast cancer charity and receives grants from it. In recent years, Komen has allocated at least $17.6 million of the donations it receives to U.S. Catholic universities, hospitals and charities.

Church opposition reached dramatic new proportions in 2011, when the 11 bishops who represent Ohio's 2.6 million Catholics announced a statewide policy banning church and parochial school donations to Komen.

Such pressure helped sway Komen's leadership to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, according to current and former Komen officials. The decision, made public in January, and Komen's reversal only days later, sparked an angry outcry from both sides of an intensifying American debate over abortion.

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