Komenclusterf*%k Gives Pro-Choicers a Big Public Relations Win

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Steph Herold, a Brooklyn-based reproductive justice activist, said that so many were mobilized in opposition to Komen because "playing politics with cancer is a particularly low blow."

"The media has finally caught on to the fact that there are thousands of young people who support reproductive health, rights, and justice, and that when you try to take away our rights, we will organize and we will win," Herold, who runs the site iamdrtiller.com, told Runnin' Scared. I don't think this will stop the attacks on reproductive rights, but it certainly has mobilized us to fight them."

Unlike previous firestorms surrounding Planned Parenthood, activists successfully reframed the organization as a provider of women's healthcare, not the abortionplex too many believe it to be.

Media consultant Deanna Zandt wrote on her blog that Komen's move to withdraw funding was so offensive to so many because it wasn't your usual family values, red herring nonsense. "A non-partisan organization (albeit one with a dubious history, about more of which we're learning every day) caved to anti-choice pressure. That hurt," she said. Zandt began gathering personal testimonies from women who have used PP's services on tumblr, a move that she said gave the brouhaha more emotional resonance.