Mayor Michael Bloomberg To Give $250,000 To Planned Parenthood After Komen Cuts Funding

Billionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged Thursday to give a piece of his own fortune to Planned Parenthood. The sizable donation-- in which Bloomberg will give $1 for every new dollar Planned Parenthood raises up to $250,000-- is in response to the controversy surrounding the Susan G. Komen Foundation's decision to cease giving grants to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings.

"Politics have no place in health care," Bloomberg said in a statement, according to The New York Times. "Breast cancer screening saves lives and hundreds of thousands of women rely on Planned Parenthood for access to care. We should be helping women access that care, not placing barriers in their way."

The Komen Foundation had been giving Planned Parenthood about $700,000 a year. In one 24-hour timespan since Komen announced that they were cutting funding, Planned Parenthood received $400,000 in donations. A Texas couple donated another $250,000. Bloomberg's pledge raises the total to $900,000.

This is not the first time the mayor has come out in defense of Planned Parenthood. When Congress discussed cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from Planned Parenthood's budget, Bloomberg said the idea was detrimental to low-income women, and noted that Planned Parenthood performs 12,000 cervical cancer screening and 56,000 contraceptive visits in New York City every year.

Bloomberg has also previously donated $30 million to a citywide program for young black and latino men, and $50 million to Sierra Club's "Beyond Coal" campaign.