St. Mary's Catholic Hospital in Madison pledges to support abortion advocate Komen for the Cure

On Tuesday, March 6, Michelle Heitzinger, Executive Director of the South Central Wisconsin Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure®, spoke at a public event in Madison. The topic of the talk was Komen’s work and the recent debacle surrounding the organization’s effort to defund Planned Parenthood.

Below is a YouTube with partial audio of her talk, provided to the BC by an anonymous attendee.

Heitzinger can be heard expressing her support, and that of Komen’s, for Planned Parenthood. Heitzinger also refers to herself as a “recovering Catholic” and reveals how Komen is responding to Catholics regarding the morality of funding Planned Parenthood.

I couldn’t find the pro-Komen statement from SSM Healthcare that Heitzinger refers to, but I would assume it’s similar to this. Heitzinger also refers to a grant that the Catholic Multicultural Center in Madison received from Komen. Info here.




Or you can read the audio:

01:18 We’re not defunding Planned Parenthood, I love my Planned Parenthood sisters, but our Komen money was not keeping the lights on or keeping the doors open. Their mission is family planning, our mission is breast cancer. There’s a really small space we intersect, and that small space is important to the women who use those services…

01:45
Question from the audience: This is a hypothetical, just something for you to think about… If you’re giving money to the Catholic Multicultural Center and a priest is charged, a criminal charge, does that trigger an investigation? The priest is charged with, you know, like, child abuse or whatever. Is that gonna trigger your backing off on that grant?

Answer: Well it has to be conclusive and criminal in charge… I… that’s a good question. I would imagine that would be a determining factor for a lot of Catholic-based grants. We also have the statement from St. Mary’s saying that they continue to support Komen and the work that Komen does because it is in accordance with their mission and, um, they do a question and answer dialogue for Catholics as to why it is still, um, OK to be involved with Komen. And, I, they, it’s pretty interesting, I went to 12 years of Catholic school and I’m a recovering Catholic now, but um, they do explain to Catholics why you can still be a part of Susan G. Komen. Um, the statement is:

“Given our long history of serving poor and vulnerable women, SSM Healthcare supports Susan G. Komen and its local affiliates and their mission to end breast cancer forever by empowering people and ensuring quality healthcare for all and energizing science to find cures. Local grant programs funded by Komen affiliates support non-profit organizations that provide innovative breast health, breast cancer education and direct service programs to women in need. The grants are made possible through events such as the Race for the Cure, the three-day, as well as generous contributions from individuals and corporate sponsors. We are aware of the recent events surrounding Susan G. Komen for the Cure and have once again examined SSM Healthcare’s relationship with the organization and as in the past, we have discovered that nothing would compel us to limit our support or our involvement with the organization at this time. As with all other relationships with outside organizations, we will continually evaluate SSM Healthcare’s ties to Susan G. Komen for the Cure and its local affiliates in light of our mission and the values of the Catholic Church teaching. “

Whisper: And then they have a little Question & Answer… I also have this in email form if anyone… if you would like to look at it or read through it. And again, it came from Stephanie Johnson over at St. Mary’s.
So, given that, that’s a really good question. The program that we fund at the Catholic Multicultural Center is for English-speaking women, for women whose English is a second language, and, uh, it’s all administered in Spanish and it is for the low-income population.

Again, how that fits a priest being found guilty, I don’t know. We fund the program, so we fund what goes on in that building. And so again I don’t know how that falls, when looking at a priest being, um…