Planned Parenthood vs. Komen: Money and Mob Rule

It's one from the "no good deed goes unpunished" department.

The Susan G. Komen Foundation, established in 1982 to raise funds for breast cancer research -- as notable a goal as any ever undertaken -- has run afoul of liberals supporting Planned Parenthood -- established in 1921 (as the American Birth Control League) by racist eugenicist Margaret Sanger to promote contraception and abortion -- as dubious, to put it mildly, a goal as ever undertaken.

The Komen Foundation's sin? Announcing it would no longer provide grants to Planned Parenthood, for the ostensible reason that the organization is under investigation by Florida U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, for possibly using federal funds to pay for abortions.

The liberal outcry -- from politicians, the press and cyber criminals -- was as phony as it was predictable.

Now, leave aside whether you think abortion is a woman's exercise of individual liberty -- as many conservative libertarians do -- or an unspeakable evil condoned by law -- as the rest of the conservative population does. The real issue here is a combination of money and mob rule -- a combination that rarely produces a good result.

The Komen Foundation, as many others have already noted, is a private charity, entitled to spend the money it raises any way its directors choose -- and presumably in a way its own donors would approve of.

If those directors decide Planned Parenthood is not a worthy -- or, more importantly, worthwhile -- recipient of those funds, it's the foundation's right to act accordingly.

By what right does the liberal mob dictate otherwise?

The fact that that liberal mob includes federal lawmakers -- predictably enough, all Democrats but one -- is as disturbing as it is distasteful.

Friday's outcome of the phony controversy is also disturbing, and predictable.

The Komen Foundation has announced Planned Parenthood -- founded in 1921, once again, by a racist eugenicist named Margaret Sanger -- is eligible for grants from its charitable funds once again.

Remember, Komen wasn't forced to give its money to Planned Parenthood in the first place. It did so only because it considered it a good deed.

And now it's being punished -- forced to give money to an organization it chose not to.

Money and mob rule: rarely a good result.