New figures directly from the Komen for the Cure foundation show 18 affiliates of the breast cancer charity gave a total of more than $569,000 to the Planned Parenthood abortion business in 2010.

The donations will certainly prompt the continued boycott of the Komen breast cancer group by millions of pro-life Americans who find it disingenuous that the women’s organization would partner with an abortion business when abortions are linked to an increase in breast cancer and when Planned Parenthood has been proven to mislead the public by falsely claiming it performs mammograms.

The new figures come from an American Life League study of Susan G. Komen affiliates’ federal forms 990 and they show 18 Komen affiliates gave $569,159 to Planned Parenthood in 2010, the latest year for which figures are available. That’s down from the $731,303 Komen officials publicly confirmed in October 2010, when they acknowledged that 20 of the 122 Komen affiliates gave to Planned Parenthood during the 2009 fiscal year.

Komen affiliates in Austin, Texas; Central New Mexico; El Paso, Texas; Greater Amarillo, Texas; Los Angeles County, California; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Salt Lake City, Utah stopped giving to the abortion business while affiliates in Dallas County, Texas; Denver, Colorado; North Carolina Triad; North Carolina Triangle; and Puget Sound, Washington all began new relationships with Planned Parenthood.

“Komen’s support of Planned Parenthood is defeating its own mission of fighting breast cancer,” Rita Diller, the director of ALL’s STOP Planned Parenthood International program, told LifeNews.com in exclusive comments. Diller added that Planned Parenthood – beyond the issue of abortion – is not the best place for Komen to send hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations if it truly wants to help women prevent or combat breast cancer.

“In the first place, Planned Parenthood is not licensed to do anything beyond Level 1 breast examinations – the same exam that can be done by a woman in her shower, or in any clinic or physician’s office. They do not perform mammograms,” Diller explained. “Add to that the fact that Planned Parenthood’s two big money-makers, abortion and contraceptives, are directly linked to breast cancer by numerous studies conducted from the 1960′s through the present.”

“It makes no sense whatsoever for Komen to give money to Planned Parenthood,” Diller said. “Komen’s claim that women in some areas would not be able to receive breast cancer care without giving grants to Planned Parenthood is horribly misleading, at best, since Planned Parenthood does not provide breast cancer care – only manual exams and referrals. ”

Diller said she is also disappointed that the list of Komen affiliates giving money to Planned Parenthood includes several highly-populated urban areas where numerous alternatives to Planned Parenthood are readily available.

“To say that there is no other alternative in such areas for women to receive breast cancer screening and care is preposterous,” she said.

Another problem for pro-life advocates is the fact that Planned Parenthood is reducing the number of breast cancer screenings while increasing its abortions. According to the 2008 Annual Report from Planned Parenthood, breast cancer services decreased by 4% and abortion procedures increased by 6%.

The Komen spokesman confirmed last year that Komen affiliates contributed about $3.3 million to the abortion business from 2004-2009. That and the longtime ties between Komen and Planned Parenthood have resulted in some backlash from the pro-life community. The Komen annual report reveals Komen brought in almost $22 million less, or 6% less, in 2009 than it made in 2008. That could be a result of the difficult economic times or may also come as a result of pro-life advocates increasingly boycotting Komen.

Meanwhile, the newest research on the link between abortion and breast cancer reveals abortion certainly plays a role in increasing the breast cancer risk.

A January 2010 study called abortion a “known risk factor” for breast cancer and cited a study conducted by the prestigious Janet Daling group of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Daling and her colleagues showed between a 20 and 50 percent increased breast cancer risk for women having abortions compare to those who carried their pregnancies to term.

And microbiologist Dr. Gerard Nadal, who has a PhD in Molecular Microbiology from St John’s University in New York, has spent 16 years teaching science, most recently at Manhattan College, has been profiling more than 100 studies on his blog showing abortion’s link to breast cancer.

TAKE ACTION: Contact Komen for the Cure to complain about its Planned Parenthood grants at http://ww5.komen.org/Contact.aspx.