However, it’s new president may cause more controversy for Komen, which is facing financial problems and cancelling events in the wake of the Planned Parenthood funding scandal.
The breast cancer charity named Judith A. Salerno to replace founder Nancy Brinker. Brinker, 67, announced in August that she would move from the CEO role, which she’d held since 2009, into a new one focused on fundraising and strategic planning.In late 2011, the Dallas-based charity decided to halt grants to Planned Parenthood, which received about $680,000 that year. News of the move caused a torrent of questions about the decision and calls for its reversal, angering Komen supporters on both sides of the abortion debate.
Three days after the initial disclosure, Komen reversed its course, which led to more harsh criticism, this time from abortion opponents accusing the charity of caving to public pressure.
Karen Handel, the group’s vice president and a conservative, resigned the following week and later wrote a blistering account of the episode entitled “Planned Bullyhood.”
As if the Planned Parenthood funding controversy wasn’t bad enough, Salerno headed the Institute of Medicine, which approved the Obama HHS mandate that forces religious groups to fund birth control and drugs that may cause abortions.
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