The day after Rosen's column, Curves issued a press release headlined "Curves Founders' Make Large Charitable Donations -- But Not to Radical Pro-Life Groups." The release quoted Heavin as saying "Neither Curves International Inc., nor my wife, nor I gave money to Operation Save America or any other radical pro-life group." It went on to explain that the Heavins "support organizations that contribute to the overall health and wellness of women and their families" by donating to three specific health charities in central Texas: Care Net, the Family Practice Center of McLennan County, and the McLennan County Collaborative Abstinence Project. The release also detailed the Heavins' other contributions, to Shriners Hospitals, the Natchez Children's Home in Mississippi, the American Cancer Society, the Arthritis Foundation and the American Heart Association. According to the press release, the couple created a $2 million endowment at Thomas Edison State University in New Jersey, and funded a five-year, $5 million medical study on methods of improving women's health at Baylor University.

On May 13, the San Francisco Chronicle published a lengthy correction to both Carroll's and Rosen's stories. The correction refuted Rosen's description of Heavin's chosen charities as "some of the most militant anti-abortion groups in the country," stating: "That characterization is not accurate." Neither, according to the correction, was Rosen's assertion that the donations fund pregnancy crisis centers: "Only one of the recipients, Care Net, operates pregnancy centers that are designed to dissuade pregnant women from having abortions while offering other support services to encourage adoption." The paper specified that Heavin has pledged $1 million to Care Net over the next five years. His largest contribution, $3.75 million, is to the Family Practice Center of McLennan County, which provides health care to many uninsured Texans, and "does not provide abortions but is not actively involved in the anti-abortion movement." Heavin's third Texas charity, the McLennan County Abstinence Project, which will receive $250,000 over five years, does not mention abortion or birth control as options when counseling teens on their sexual health. The correction clarified that contrary to both Carroll's and Rosen's pieces, Heavin's contributions were not any percentage of Curves' revenues, but part of Heavin's "personal wealth." It also corrected both Rosen and Carroll by noting that quotes they attributed to Heavin's Christianity Today interview actually came from Today's Christian, a magazine affiliated with Christianity Today. And, the correction stated, contrary to both journalists' suggestions, Heavin is not allied with Operation Save America, but had been praised by its members for his donations to the above groups.

In an e-mail to Salon, Rosen, a former historian at the University of California at Davis who has been with the Chronicle for four years, wrote, "Before I wrote my column, I called the public relations officer at Curves, who verified all the information I had gathered. After my column appeared, however, a new public relations officer sent out a press release saying that there were several errors in my column, including that Gary Heavin, who has said and written that he opposes abortion, did not give $5 million to three crisis pregnancy centers. That turns out to be true. He gave $5 million to three different nonprofit groups in Waco, Texas, all of whom are anti-choice and do not discuss or provide birth control. One is a pregnancy crisis center, another is an abstinence-only promotion collaborative and the third is a Catholic family practice center." Carroll, who is currently traveling across the country, could not be reached for comment.

It looked as though the charges against Heavin were not as distressing as they had appeared: He had given his own private money to anti-abortion groups, but not the kind that picket and hold bloody fetus posters or encourage violence. Some would argue that for pro-choice activists, these kinds of institutions are even more invidious, since they are more rational and try to take the place of groups like Planned Parenthood; others say that they simply provide another choice for women. A philosophical question had been raised about what it means to be militant, what it means to be anti-abortion, and what it means to patronize a company whose CEO may have radically different beliefs than many of his clientele.

But there were other questions as well, specifically about the legions of women who had not been paying close attention to every twist and turn of the reporting. No matter what details the correction clarified, the original alarm had been raised across the country, and members were dropping out of Curves. Charylu Roberts, who, with her business partner, Cinnamon, owns two San Francisco franchises, lost 16 clients in the weeks following Carroll's column. Only two new members joined her gym during a period in which she had been averaging 10; she estimated her losses at around $10,000. Anne Marx, a lawyer who owns two Bay Area Curves locations with her husband, said that her Rockridge franchise was hit the hardest, fastest. In a matter of days, Marx said, she had lost six customers, and her total climbed to 13. "There was something about being in a slightly wealthier area where women felt more empowered," said Marx, noting that one of her customers actually told her, "I know I can go somewhere else that will cost more money. Not all women have that option, but I do." Then there was the fear that pro-life activists, who had surely heard the call of a fellow traveler running a business they could support, would join the gym.

Franchise owners -- many of whom had been aware of their boss's religious convictions and his pro-life stance, but considered it a quiet reality unrelated to Curves' business practices -- were poring over information and talking to Curves executives to determine where Heavin really stood in relation to radical anti-abortion groups.

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