'Boobies' Cancer Campaign Gets It Wrong

Message is about breasts instead of people
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 3, 2010 3:46 PM CDT
'Boobies' Cancer Campaign Gets It Wrong
A stack of 'I heart boobies' bracelets are seen in this image from the Keep-A-Breast campaign.   (Keep-A-Breast)

Some American schools are banning students from wearing rubber bracelets that read "I (heart) boobies"—a slogan for a breast-cancer awareness campaign. They're afraid of that word, which is silly. "But you know what? I'm offended by the bracelets, too—just for a very different reason," writes Tracy Clark-Flory at Salon. Their message is that saving breasts, not people, is the reason to fight breast cancer.

"Not only are women reduced to their breasts, but men are reduced to their love for breasts—as though they will only pay attention to the cause if presented with a pair of luscious, jiggling tits," writes Clark-Flory, whose mother has been diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. "When it's an incurable case, when the prospects of survival are bleak, you aren't thinking about how much you love 'boobies,' or whatever the diseased body part may be, you're thinking about how much you don't want your loved one to die." (More breasts stories.)

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