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February 8th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda FIRST PERSON | I lost two friends this week to breast cancer. Two friends in two days, young women whose voices on the blogosphere were articulate and powerful. Women I had spent time with, laughed with, enjoyed a meal with. The complaints of the right-to-lifers in defense of Susan G. Komen‘s first appalling decision make me ill.
Whatever anyone thinks about abortion, does this make breast cancer deaths acceptable? Whatever anyone thinks about Planned Parenthood, Planned Parenthood is still an organization that provides breast cancer screenings to women who need it, women who will not get screened otherwise. Where were the needs of these women when Karen Handel pushed her anti-Planned Parenthood agenda?
Karen Handel, Komen vice president, has resigned according to Reuters. This may satisfy some critics that Susan G. Komen is arguably returning to the mission it claims. I wonder why Handel ever held the position in the first place, and how it was possible to mix an anti-abortion, anti-Planned Parenthood agenda with preventing deaths from breast cancer. How did this happen? What do these two things have to do with each other?
My friend Susan Niebur died Monday of the same disease that tried to take my life, a disease that remains vague on the Susan G. Komen website despite repeated requests from IBC survivors to provide complete and accurate information. A search for inflammatory breast cancer on the Komen site results in some incidental references to research papers, and no helpful information that women need. That’s just wrong. Susan Niebur fought IBC for five years, through three recurrences, fighting for every minute with her two toddler boys. Her blog, Toddler Planet, brought the reality of her struggle to people all over the world. She didn’t even live to reach 40. Komen doesn’t care about her, or me. We faced an ugly disease that doesn’t usually result in triumphant ever-afters. Not pretty, not pink.
Early Tuesday morning, Rachel Moro of The Cancer Culture Chronicles lost her nine-year battle with metastatic cancer. Metastatic cancer is what kills. Before you give to any breast cancer charity, find out for yourself how much money gets allocated to research to prevent and cure metastasis. The Komen picture is not pretty. Rachel was 42.
These women were my friends. These are two deaths among many, two activists whose voices are now silent. What of the women who die quietly among family and friends, casualties of the disease that the public thinks has been conquered, a distortion that pink ribbon culture has convinced us is real?
Karen Handel revealed that she had a major part in Susan G. Komen’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood, according to the Huffington Post. She stated that others were also involved, which runs contrary to the earlier, official Komen story.
They’ll get no money from me, and I won’t wear a pink ribbon. I miss my friends.
Elizabeth Danu is a five-year survivor of inflammatory breast cancer, a rare cancer that does not appear on mammograms and presents without a lump. Her blog is The Liberation of Persephone .
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