AN UPDATE to the previous post about the rift between Susan G Komen for the Cure and Planned Parenthood: Komen has announced that it will continue to work with Planned Parenthood. The reversal follows several developments, including, crucially, Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting at the Atlantic that the policy that Komen had initially cited in cutting off the funding—the policy of not giving any funds to organisations that are under investigation—was actually a new policy created in order to cover its desire to cut off the funds in question.

The debate over this will continue; unsurprisingly, both Komen and Planned Parenthood have raised a lot of money from their respective supporters over the last few days, and the whole fracas has pushed the abortion debate back into the political spotlight, where it will remain, despite the reversal. Komen's reversal may be bad tactics—as various wags have pointed out, the organisation has now irritated pro-life people in addition to pro-choice people—but on the substance, it was a solid call. Planned Parenthood is fundamentally a women's-health organisation, not a political combatant, despite what you hear from some segments of the right; and Komen is a charity with an interest in women's health.

One aspect of this that I think is worth flagging is that it is the second time in two weeks that vocally upset people have had a demonstrable effect on an issue. The first, of course, was over the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act. After a semi-centralised backlash around the internet—the Wikipedia blackout, the statements from big industry players like Google, and the clamour on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media—both bills have been postponed indefinitely. You can also, arguably, see this phenomenon at work in, for example, the end of ethanol subsidies. This suggests that public opinion can actually make a difference in politics, at least when the most compelling arguments are on its side. That's a cheering prospect for a small-d democrat, particularly in the age of SuperPACs and so on.