Karen Handel's most harrowing assignment came shortly after she started her job as the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation's senior vice president for public policy. Asked to discontinue the breast cancer fighter's longstanding funding partnership with Planned Parenthood, Handel found herself squarely within the abortion provider's crosshairs. As a steadfast pro-lifer and a former deputy chief of staff to a pro-life Republican governor, she provided Planned Parenthood a convenient symbolic target. When her employer bowed before the onslaught and agreed to restore the funding, Handel resigned in protest.
In her new book, Planned Bullyhood (Howard Books), Handel recounts the events that precipitated her departure from the Komen foundation. CT editorial resident Melissa Steffan spoke with Handel about the reasoning behind Komen's breakup with Planned Parenthood, the urgency of reckoning with the abortion giant's full range of political activities, and the faith that empowered her to stand resolutely by her moral convictions.
When you arrived, Komen was being criticized by pro-life groups and voices on the Right for being pro-abortion and supporting Planned Parenthood. Do you think pro-life groups acted well in this controversy, before Komen changed its funding?
The Left is trying to make it out that the bullies against Komen are on the other side, but there's a major difference in tactics. Here's the difference that I see with the pro-life organizations and even the Catholic Church. They never made an orchestrated media campaign, an orchestrated effort to really destroy Komen. That's what Planned Parenthood was out to do. From the pro-life side, people were being informed about what Komen's branding model looked like and who they were giving money to, and then individuals were making their decisions. It wasn't an orchestrated effort to destroy the organization. Planned Parenthood and the Left really did just unleash an unprecedentedly vicious attack on Komen, all over $680,000 that is nothing in the grand scheme of Planned Parenthood's $1 billion budget.
What was the thinking behind the decision to pull what you call the "crappy grants" from Planned Parenthood?
The issue has been around at Komen for at least a decade. It would flare and die down, flare and die down. The decision ultimately had to do with Komen's granting strategy. Komen wanted to have the biggest impact for its donor dollars possible, and that meant restructuring how Komen was going to do education programs so that more funding would go toward what we consider national "best practices." Secondly, the foundation wanted to move away from the "pass-through" grant, because it made sense to go directly to a mammogram provider versus having a group like Planned Parenthood, which does not directly provide mammograms, get a cut of the funding. So for the $680,000, Komen's intent all along was to realign those dollars elsewhere in other programs, to be able to do more and serve more women.
Another falsehood that Planned Parenthood and [its president] Cecile Richards promoted is the notion that we were "pulling the grant." That was not true. Komen was transitioning out of the grants and was already working with Planned Parenthood, working with Komen affiliates, to ensure there would be absolutely no gap in service. For Komen, the $680,000 represented less than one percent of Komen's total granting portfolio of more than $93 million a year. This really was an inconsequential amount of grant funding.
Komen inadvertently landed right in the middle of the culture wars with its decision to pull funding from Planned Parenthood. Is that a battle you ever saw Komen attempting to fight?
Absolutely not. All along, part of what Komen saw was that, in restructuring the granting strategy, Komen could get out of the middle of the culture wars. For some in the organization, there was a sense that we were in the middle, and we wanted out. As Planned Parenthood became more and more political, that was having a greater impact on Komen and its fundraising, and it made absolutely no sense from a business perspective—or from a mission perspective—to continue to take PR hits over another entity's issues.
Looking back, do you think you could have done more to help Komen prepare for the Planned Parenthood and media attacks?
Politics had not been in the equation for us. In retrospect, we should have looked at the issue through the political filter as well. Planned Parenthood and the Left came at it in terms of raw politics, and we did not. This is where I wish I would have done a better job. I wish that I would have been more vocal about what I thought Planned Parenthood would do. Again, we just did not see them as an adversary, and we should have.
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When it comes to abortion and Planned Parenthood, is there such thing as a neutral moral ground? Do you just have to pick a side and stand for it?
I felt as though I believed that there could be a neutral ground. One of my own takeaways from the entire incident is, probably not. While politics was never on the table in the conversation at Komen—to the organization's own detriment—it is abundantly clear to me that, in the aftermath, in capitulating, it did become about politics. I still firmly believe that the best place for Komen was to not do the grant. I remain steadfast in that. If Komen would have just stayed the course, they would have been in a better place. Our strategy in dealing in with the press—I will call it the "Chick-fil-A strategy"—was to offer a statement and not really get into the debate. But once an interview happened, Komen was in the debate.
The book is really contrasting the ideas of politics versus mission. Where was the intersection of politics and mission for Komen?
For Komen, where it intersected was about breast cancer and funding for the breast and cervical cancer screening program that comes from the Centers for Disease Control. What Komen and certainly I believe is that the intersection should not be the abortion debate. Komen does not take any government funding. The efforts to secure funding for breast cancer screening—none of that benefitted Komen. Komen's policy is not to take government funding, which is one of the core principles of the organization. That's in very stark contrast to Planned Parenthood, which gets nearly 50 percent of its budget from tax dollars and then has the audacity to be engaged in aggressive partisan politics. The extent of Planned Parenthood's government funding and its aggressive, liberal politics—I hope that those are two pieces of information that more people in America can understand.
I did not know how political Planned Parenthood is, the extent of its fundraising and lobbying network, and how engaged Cecile Richards is personally in reelecting Barack Obama. She is nothing short of a surrogate for his campaign. I don't think most Americans really know that. The pro-life community and pro-life leaders have done an extraordinary job of building the case that our tax dollars are subsidizing Planned Parenthood's abortion business. But there is an additional case to be made: Our tax dollars are also subsidizing Planned Parenthood's political activities. They have already shelled out close to $10 million in TV ads in swing states to support Barack Obama.
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Obviously there are places where Komen's mission—to eradicate breast cancer and contribute to the fight for women's health—intersects with politics. But are there places where Komen's mission intersects with faith?
Komen has a long, long history of a positive partnership with most of the faith-based organizations, particularly with the Catholic community and Catholic hospitals. Every year, Komen gives tens of millions of dollars in grants to Catholic research facilities and hospitals, all for breast cancer research or detection.
How did you bring faith to the table in doing your job at Komen?
For me personally, when I first got into public office, people often said you cannot have your faith influence your decisions in a political leadership role. When I worked for [Georgia] Governor Sonny Perdue—he is a man of extraordinary faith—I learned from him that not only does your faith play a role in your personal life, day to day, but it can and it must play a role in your thought process and decision-making process in when you have leadership role. He was so ridiculed for having a prayer service when Georgia was undergoing an intense drought—ridiculed mercilessly, I will tell you. But I will add: It rained. I take that with me now everywhere I go. I like to think I'm probably like most people, in that we're all on a journey in terms of what happens in our lives or where we are with our faith. Through politics, my husband and I were able to experience so much so of the faith community, whether through Catholic churches or visiting other churches. It very much re-ignited our own personal faith.
What does this entire situation tell us about the dangers of ideology, both political and religious?
Individuals need to have principles and a moral compass. It's just a fact that, for those of us on the pro-life side, we have a different belief. We do believe we should have a pro-life culture in this country. That's not what the Left believes. One thing I've been struck by is how—I don't really know how or when—women's health all of a sudden became equated with abortion. I don't know how that happened over the course of the past 20 years. I reject that notion. I would hope that reasonable individuals—on any side—would see that the right to kill a baby has nothing to do with women's health.
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You outline why you believe the Planned Parenthood attack on Komen was deliberately planned—and you call it bullying. But where do you draw the line between activism and bullying? When did Planned Parenthood cross that line?
There's a way to have grassroots activism and to make your case. Planned Parenthood crossed the line in that it orchestrated an effort to really destroy Komen. Either Komen did what Planned Parenthood wanted or we would be destroyed. When grassroots advocates for Planned Parenthood were rallied, and vile comments were put up on Komen's Facebook pages (and my own Facebook page), and vile tweets were sent out—all of that crossed the line, and not once did Cecile Richards stand up and say, "This has crossed the line." They made it personal about me, and about our founder, [former U.S.] Ambassador Nancy Brinker. They made it personal about my political views and vilified me over them. Meanwhile, it was a pass for Cecile Richards, an absolute pass. Komen acted professionally in how this was handled and paid the price for being professional and respectful of a long time grantee.
During this firestorm, did you ever feel hopeless? What role did your faith play throughout all of this?
Oh, I prayed every night! I really questioned how this could be happening, why it was happening. I had to trust that it was for a reason. I don't know that it's all that crystal clear to me today what the reason is, but what I do know is that somehow I am called to be a voice on this issue in my own way and in whatever way I can be impactful, so that's what I'm going to try to do.
What did you learn about the importance of moral conviction in leadership?
It's essential to being able to stay true to a mission and stay true to yourself. It also is hard—really hard. Don't get me wrong; I appreciate the level of pressure that Komen and the leadership at the time felt. But conviction is the key to strong leadership and being able to be strong in the face of great criticism. I learned that what other people say about you does not define who you are. You are defined by your own actions and your own deeds. Sometimes you get it right and sometimes you don't, but when you know something is right, when you believe something is right, you have to dig deep and stay true to those convictions, even if it means you have to stand alone. Just because you don't know you're going to win going in, doesn't mean you shouldn't do the right thing.
What are the most important takeaways from this situation for you, in terms of God and your personal faith?
You may be standing alone in terms of having other people physically and vocally supporting you, but rely on your faith and you always have God with you. That was for me—and is for anyone going through something difficult—a tremendous source of strength and a place to find calmness.
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Is this battle between Planned Parenthood and Komen over?
I don't know. I think Komen will get to this place, find themselves at this crossroads again, and at that point—well, I just don't know.
How would you respond to claims that you're being opportunistic with this book?
I was not Komen's spokesperson. I did a round of interviews when I resigned, just to try to reset the decibel level of things. I continue to have a great deal of respect for Nancy Brinker and for Komen; this is an organization that has done extraordinarily impactful things for women in the fight against breast cancer. I went out of my way to be focused on the incident with Planned Parenthood, and what I see in Planned Parenthood, and to communicate a message and points that a lot of people don't know. The book is about what Planned Parenthood did. I don't think that winning is the point. The truth is the point.
Now that you've written this book, what are your plans for the future?
I have absolutely no idea. I have great faith that it will all work out. I know God is with me on this road. I don't know where it's going to take me, but I have a deep faith and a great confidence that it will be fine, and I will be doing what I need to be doing.