Curves or no Curves?

Since I wrote "No Curves for me!" I've exchanged a few e-mails with Teresa of Curvers for Choice, a site she started out of distress over the revelation that Curves founder Gary Heavin has donated millions to anti-choice groups.

Please visit her site. It's an excellent compilation of information and resources.

The original article that was the catalyst for my first Curves entry turns out to have been full of inaccuracies. The San Francisco Chronicle has now printed a correction detailing those inaccuracies.

While it is still true that Heavin donates money to Care Net, which operates "pregnancy crisis centers," and that he has donated more than $400,000 to Republicans in the 2002 elections, it is also true that his largest donation is to the Family Practice Center of McLennan County in Texas, which provides a variety of health-care services to women and which, although it does not provide abortions, is not actively involved in anti-abortion activities.

On the negative side, Heavin stopped donating to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation because of its support for Planned Parenthood. Heavin is no longer one of the sponsors of Race for the Cure.

Women are in a quandary over what to do: quit or stay? Some franchises are apparently seeing some of their members desert. It all comes back to the same problem: does boycotting a business really have an impact on its owner/s? In the case of Curves, it's the individual franchise owners who are hurt, not Gary Heavin. Boycotts can work--witness the Birmingham bus boycott during the Civil Rights movement--but they have to be well organized and well publicized.

Of course, there's another dimension. As a person who makes choices every day about how to live and where to spend my money, I try to make those choices based on certain considerations revolving around rights, social justice, and the environment. One of my friends, who reacted very strongly to my attitude toward Curves, pointed out that we wouldn't be able to eat, clothe ourselves, or drive a car if we adhered strictly to politically correct buying. She certainly had a point. It's something I've thought about for a long time, and I don't have any clear-cut answers.

Teresa of Curvers for Choice urges Curves customers to donate to pro-choice organizations in Gary Heavin's name. She says,

Let's make it a goal: pro-choice Curves customers raise $1 million a year for five years for pro-choice organizations.

Planned Parenthood has a special donation page for fitness center participants--see the top link on the page. Visit Curvers for Choice for a list of pro-choice organizations you can give to, and be sure that you give in Heavin's name.

Ladies, if you must have your Curves, wear your pro-choice T-shirts and buttons to your workout, and for Heavin's sake, donate to a pro-choice organization in the founder's name!

Comments

[Joel]

I have no problem with giving money to pregnancy crisis centers which focus on providing genuine alternatives to abortion, especially ones beyond adoption that allow the woman to become an effective single parent. Do the recipients of Heavin's centers do this? That's the deciding line for me. I wouldn't want to support an alternative to abortion center which was just another takeup point for the Buy a Baby market.

As for selecting or not selecting Curves: I don't see a problem with women choosing not to exercise there. Plenty of options exist. Your friend's argument doesn't persuade me.

[Mary Beth]

I'm not an evangelical Christian by any means, but I used to be a volunteer at a CareNet center because I am both profemale and pro fetal life and feel that if you object to abortion you HAVE to do truly lifeaffirming, positive things--at every level of society from the personal to the global-- that will help to reduce abortion. CareNet's national policy is to be honest that they don't refer or provide for abortion. Also to offer clients the chance to explore their feelings about adoption if they wish to and referrals for adoption services to those who are interested. But adoption isn't pushed. The choice between parenting and adoption is held to be the pregnant woman's. Even some evangelicals believe that! As a Buddhist-liberal Christian I believe that every heart holds the seeds of lovingkindness, bodhicitta, and why would evangelicals be different from anyone else--no matter what else they do that one might not agree with.