Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum say it is “unfortunate” and “disappointing” that the Susan G. Komen Foundation backed off from a new policy under which the Foundation would deny new grants to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening.

The two Republican presidential candidates used the Komen decision to depict Planned Parenthood clinics as abortion mills, although abortions account for only 3 percent of the clinics’ services.

“I am very disappointed to hear that,” Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator and fervent abortion opponent, told Politico when he heard of the retreat by Komen in the face of nationwide protests.

“It’s unfortunate that political pressure is building to provide money to an organization that goes out and actively is the number one abortion provider in the country. That’s not health care. That’s not health care at all. Killing little children in the womb is not health care.”

Gingrich, in an interview with CNN, pledged that he would cut off all federal funding to Planned Parenthood if elected. Planned Parenthood gets federal money for not abortion-related health services. It has provided services to an estimated one out of every five American women.

“Planned Parenthood needs to split into two totally separate organizations,” Gingrich said, “because what it does today is it takes money for seemingly positive things to sustain abortion clinics in America.

“Planned Parenthood performs more abortions than any other institution in the United States. The money is all fungible. So when you lure people in for women’s health needs and, by the way, right down the hall you have an abortion clinic, I think that’s inappropriate.”