Jodie Ostrovsky, owner of What's The Scoop? ice cream shop in Portland, Oregon, had worked with Planned Parenthood before. "Nothing happened," she told The Huffington Post. "This year, honestly, I didn't even think about it."
She's thinking about it now.
Anti-abortion supporters got wind of the ice cream shop's Planned Parenthood fundraiser, and they let their disapproval be known.
Abortion ice cream???
#PRAY for this sick, twisted organization and the souls that are lost in it.
#PRAY that... http://t.co/qX8WhAVUTW— Erica Burton (@EBurton4Life) July 19, 2014
"I was surprised," Ostrovsky told HuffPost.
As it does regularly with local groups, What's The Scoop? partnered with Planned Parenthood to create a new flavor -- in this case, a mix of honey vanilla and rose petal called Rose City Revolution.
The shop arranged for the organization to sell the ice cream, as well as a few other flavors, for a period of time and keep 50 percent of the profit. On July 17, What's The Scoop? hosted a three-hour party for the organization to invite guests. During that time, the parlor donated 10 percent of all sales to the group.
However, the store's community-mindedness hit a rocky road just before the event kicked off.
Ostrovsky said the backlash appears to have begun with a posting on an anti-abortion blog, which called the flavor "Blood and Scream!"
Another comment from elsewhere, Ostrovsky said, compared her to Josef Mengele, the Nazi who performed human experiments and picked concentration camp inmates to be killed.
"Some of them have been scary," Ostrovsky told Willamette Week of the reactions. "Some of them are bizarre and odd. We don’t know why they’re telling us that we have problems when they’re saying terrible, threatening things."
However, the shop's Facebook page, where some of the negative comments appeared, has received a deluge of support.
"Keep on the good work with making wonderful flavors and supporting health care facilities that need it!" one visitor wrote. "As for all the other commenters: you should all be absolutely ashamed of yourselves."
Despite the controversy, Ostrovsky explained to Eater Portland that she's grateful for a "wonderful outpouring of support.”