I challenge you . . . to a duel!: Paying for women’s health?

From Chick-fil-A to Starbucks, Microsoft to Target, Americans like public protests over companies and organization's political inclinations, with the most recent example involving Planned Parenthood and the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Komen – synonymous with pink ribbons and breast cancer awareness – cut ties to controversial Planned Parenthood, but after a wave of emotional outcry, decided to reinstate their grants. Komen was entirely justified in cutting ties with Planned Parenthood, and should do so again based on Planned Parenthood's ineffectiveness in tackling breast cancer.

First, let's be clear that private organizations can donate to whomever they would like and that individuals have the right to refuse funds to any organization with whom they disagree. That said, Komen was donating $700,000 to Planned Parenthood out of its $1 billion fund, and was only responsible for a fraction of Planned Parenthood's total funding.

Komen defunded 19 Planned Parenthood clinics that failed to meet a certain criteria on effectively treating breast cancer. As Live Action points out, Planned Parenthood admits it refers patients for mammograms since they don't offer them. Komen wanted to take out the middle man and give directly to the clinics that do offer mammograms.

While Planned Parenthood has more services than just abortion, they remain the largest abortion provider in the nation, performing 329,445 abortions in 2011. They claim abortion accounts for only 3 percent of their services, but their abortion income in 2010 accounted for more than 50 percent of their total clinic income, with the number of prenatal clients and adoption referrals dropping.

Opponents of the Komen-PP separation said that the money was going toward breast exams, not abortions. Unfortunately, money is fungible, meaning that it frees up other money to be used for other services, including abortions.

What neither side will admit is that abortion is the leading preventable cause of breast cancer. According to Louise A. Brinton and others in the Cancer Epidemiology journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, among seven risk factors, abortion is the "best predictor of breast cancer."

Though there is no scientific consensus for the abortion-breast cancer link, the 2009 peer-reviewed report demonstrates recent research in the topic and a shift in perspective: Brinton was the lead researcher for the government-funded National Cancer Institute that originally denied the abortion-breast cancer link.

When the news broke that Komen was cutting ties with Planned Parenthood, many claimed it was a politically-driven decision and that anti-abortion activists had bullied the organization. As if making a choice to no longer support Komen was NOT politically driven?

If anti-abortionists "bullied" Komen, what should it be called when pro-choicers publicly decry the organization, curse its leaders and vow to never financially support it until it agrees with their political views?

While Komen was justified in cutting funds based on Planned Parenthood's ineffectiveness in diagnosing and treating breast cancer, it would have also been justified in cutting funds due to the simple fact that the money was able to be used for abortions – something not in Komen for the Cure's mission – which may aggravate the breast cancer problem.

If the thousands of Americans that had publicly dissed Komen over the Planned Parenthood controversy were really worried about women's health, they should stop donating to the inefficient and problem-provoking Planned Parenthood and instead look at tackling another possible cause of breast cancer – abortion.

For Komen, the controversy was over private funds, but the situation serves as a good litmus test for the broader debate over using taxpayer money to fund Planned Parenthood.

Mob rule aside, if a private organization in the free market is unable to justify supporting an inefficient, problem-provoking organization, why should the federal government?