Anti-choice movement gets duped in a Blogger Baby Hoax
By John Amato Sunday Jun 14, 2009 2:00pm
(Beccah Beushausen photographed near her home, Wednesday, June 10, 2009. (David Pierini / Chicago Tribune / June 10, 2009)
Wow, this is pretty despicable. Woman captivates thousands in anti-abortion movement with false story of difficult pregnancy
The unmarried mother's story about giving birth to a child diagnosed as terminally ill in the womb hit a major nerve on the Internet.
Every night for the last two months, thousands of abortion opponents across the nation logged on to a blog run by the suburban Chicago woman who identified herself only as "B" or "April's Mom."
People said they prayed that God would save her pregnancy. They e-mailed her photos of their children dressed in pink, bought campaign T-shirts, shared tales of personal heartache and redemption, and sent letters and gifts to an Oak Lawn P.O. box in support.
As more and more people were drawn to her compelling tale, eager advertisers were lining up. And established parenting Web sites that oppose abortion were promoting her blog -- which included biblical quotes, anti-abortion messages and a soundtrack of inspirational Christian pop songs.
By Sunday night, when "April's Mom" claimed to have given birth to her "miracle baby" -- blogging that April Rose had survived a home birth only to die hours later -- her Web site had nearly a million hits.There was only one problem with the unfolding tragedy: None of it was true.
Not the pregnancy, and not the photos posted on the blog of the supposed mother and Baby April Rose, swaddled in white blankets. The baby was actually a lifelike doll, which immediately raised the suspicion of loyal blog-followers.
"I have that exact doll in my house," said Elizabeth Russell, a dollmaker from Buffalo who had been following the blog. "As soon as I saw that picture, I knew it was a scam."
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She had expected only a handful of friends to read it, but when her first post got 50 comments, she was hooked."I've always liked writing. It was addictive to find out I had a voice that people wanted to hear," Beushausen said.
"Soon I was getting 100,000 hits a week, and it just got out of hand," she said. "I didn't know how to stop. ... One lie led to another."
So the lie isn't the problem, but the fact that she got addicted to blogging made her continue on. What a sad and disgusting tale. Using a phony story to whip up the anti-choice movement is pretty vile. A woman has the right to choose in this country, but the religious right will do anything it can to try and take that right away. You never hear them talk about the mother in any of their debates. It's like the woman is only a "vessel" to carry a child and doesn't exist in any other manner. "Bring the vessel here." "How dare the vessel speak out."
Hullabaloo calls them moral midgets.
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It really is far too common among those of the talibangelical right. When you routinely believe in the impossible and the power of magical thinking, all things are possible. They have no credibility filters (other than if secularists or liberals said it, then it must be wrong) and really believe that it is OK to lie for Jeebus (it really isn't a lie if it captures the "truth" of the situation).
Eusebius taught a doctrine he called "holy lying," knowingly lying to promote the cause of religion.
Did any of the Fox Third Reich or Wacko-Malkins out there fall for this? Did any of them use her as their poster child? Did any of them try to cover Bill O's redneck ass?
I mean isn't it obvious?
for exposing how gullible and easily manipulated Wingnuts are.
Many of the comments under the original article claim the perpetrator of this hoax profited from the millions of clicks her victims made on advertisements displayed on her website.
Turn about is fair play I suppose. Pregnancy crisis centers operate as counseling centers when they are nothing more than mouthpieces for the anti-choicers, willing to tell whatever lie to stop abortion. Operation Rescue touts people who pretend to have had horrific experiences with abortion. You'd think after years of lying that they might be able to recognize when they are getting lied to.
She was preaching to the choir, telling them what they want to hear, just like FOX.
It's easy to pull off a scam if you know your lie is one your mark is predisposed to believe.
The right wing is so easily manipulated, as they have no curiosity and would rather just be told what to think. The left questions and debates and is in constant turmoil for the most part, but in a healthy way. Why the left has never figured out how to manipulate the bots on the right is magic question.
for the redneck life they can't understand how people would chose to live that lifestyle.
Not trying to be mean just point out a weakness.
I grew up with them and still call many of them friends. The only tolerance that comes into play is the fact that I don't tolerate fools and foolishness. Most rednecks don't either and like every other group, rednecks come in both left leaning and right leaning varieties, though I don't deny there are a lot of wingnuts among some redneck populations. You're painting those of us on the left with an extremely broad brush
I grew up in the suburbs of Dallas, but I identify with red-necks, since my maternal grandparents lived in the countryside of Arkansas, and we vacationed there every summer. Rednecks are from working in the hot sun and it's a burn, or it's from horse flies. You know, the kinda men FDR New Deal mural paintings glorified.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJBx_aFfgyo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JButKQI4d7I
The ones I've seen glorified working men and women in cities and factories, and members of the CCC and WPA. Most were NOT rednecks. Maybe the murals were in wherever you're from, but not the ones I've seen.
Ace, I are one. Admittedly of the grossly over educated and long gone variety, but these are the people I grew up with and spent a good part of my life among. I do not disrespect them as a group, but I do take a dislike to stupidity and cupidity, which are both on full display in this story.
nuff sed
we know you only do this because you're addicted to it. Saving the world is just an excuse to get your fix, right?
I'm taking Beck, because he is the stupidest. Anyone else?
BTW, I really like this girl. I would adore her if she did this on purpose.
I've had right-wingers tell me before that it doesn't matter whether something is true or not, only whether or not people think it's true or believe in it. This won't phase them one bit.
Joseph Goebbels would say. Big surprise there.
I suppose that's the only way they can justify being religious fanatics when there is no proof of the truth of their scriptures.
"Jesus later said to them: "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore be shrewd as serpents, and innocent as doves"
biting at the hand that feed you. It's Kung Fu.
Another basic mangled interpretation.
♥
Amended: Or not ;)
in our intelligence to "see the big picture".
if you get a chance... What do you believe [limits] us?
And then claimed that she was jumped by black men over her McLame bumper sticker? That was such an obvious, screaming fraud from the word go but the wingers swallowed it hook, line and sinker. They think "24" is real life. They think "Team America" is a documentary, they think that George Lucas was writing about W Bush and Dan Quayle thought Murphy Brown was a real person. I don't think right wingers are stupid, there are a lot of them in MENSA for example. They do seem to be credulously simplistic though. They don't get irnoy or subtlety. How could anybody view this ridiculous story and believe it?
In a complicated world that more than ever requires critical thinkers!
I loooovvvee Team America:
I'm So Wonely...
"raking it in" at 2 cents a click. That's addictive.
What is swaddling anyway
Depends?
When I was a kid singing Christmas Carols about Jesus lying in his manger in swaddling clothes
I pictured a pudgy baby walking like an old tin-horn in a bad Western
As if there were any other kind.
Mothers know that swaddling is tightly wrapping a child, commonly these days in a receiving blanket, which helps prevent colic. You are confusing swaddling with swaggering, which shows a lack of real-life experience.
really.
♥ ;)
How many kids singing Christmas carols have real-life experience?
And are you gonna tell every childless couple, whether by choice or not, that they lack real-life experience?
That's all my comment referred to. And yes, Truth_Critic, I have walked the walk in that I have swaddled my own babies.
Actually, I'm seeing a disconnect between the topic and the thread of comments.
I thought the story was about 1: A woman whipping up anti-choice sentiment, and 2: A woman preying of the prayerful anti-choice movement.
Aren't we always saying that the concern for the ACM is for the foetus and not the child? Here it looks like they were trying to do the right thing, only to be duped.
I was reminded about the Quiverfull movement that I grew up around. There are a couple of woman that have gotten out of this archaic belief system... not without damage though.
Just my 2¢
No the problem is that the whole movement is a lie designed to bring votes to Republican candidates who otherwise would have no platform at all and would never get elected.
These people have a very clear goal and none of it envolves the mother or the fetus.
for his little buddy, W...
But they never did anything to actually re-criminalize abortions in this country. That leaves Republicans and the ANTIs with NO ISSUE AND NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT.
Now the DEMS are back in the driving seat and CHOICE is safe and secure in this country for at leasst another few years.
Good to know these anti-abortionists right-wing whack jobs are always so moralistic when it comes down to it. Shooting defensless people as they usher in church, explode bombs at random sporting events, shoot people through their kitchen windows as they're making themselves a meal, and now this... exploiting people's raw emotions for nothing other than an ego stroke and cheap attention because you're not creative to come up with any other way to get that from people.
Although, it wouldn't actually surprise me if she had a plan to solicit 'donations', and just couldn't sink that low, in the end.
Pathetic, either way.
I don't think that she didn't solicit donations because she couldn't sink that low. I tend to think she didn't solicit donations because she got caught.
What r ya gonna do? Addicted to blogging gets you to build a web site and lie about a miracle pregnancy?
I may be addicted, maybe that's why I bought a 1000 dollar laptop and a mobile broadband connection? I try to be righteous and truthful, but that's just the Liberal soul inside me, it tells me to help other people. I may be harsh but for good reasons.
I can't believe both My Name is Earl and King of Hill have been cancelled.
The Antis are violent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOV4kmk7YZM&fe...
Think of all the people that got fooled in the rush to attack Iraq.
Nobody died over her lies.
I'm waiting for the cons to get upset about that one.
Have you tried dental floss?
Lookee here, I see a bit of swim fin right there.
Wait till the wingers catch on as to why Newt Gingrich converted to catholicism. Say what you like he is one sneaky little conniving bastard.
Count: 5 catholics out of 9 on the Supreme Court mean they rule. When the Puerto Rican is on there it will be 6 out 9.
When the wingers are happy and Roe vs Wade is trampled in the dust they will be holding prayer meetings like the cargo cults in the south pacific.
When they realize that the catholics dictate all laws, some of the wingers are going to suddenly go totally batshit crazy. I don't mean just the snake handlers and the Holy Rollers, I mean the Mormons, the Baptists, the Methodists, all of the noncatholics.
I studied the Reformation, this is not going to be pretty. In fact, if I was a catholic in the US, I would move to Paraguay and change my name to Bush.
First- "the Puerto Rican"? Really?!?!
Second- Good for you- you studied the Reformation. Problem is, it's the 21st century. The Thirty Years War is over. The Know Nothing Party died a quick death in the middle of the 19th century.
Third- American Roman Catholics have proved time and time again that they are fully capable of separating their faith from their political beliefs. Did you miss the stories of Cardinals of the Church threaten to withhold communion from pro-choice Roman Catholics? Did you see John Kerry back off of his pro-choice stance?
My grandmother died last year at 95 years old. She was what you would probably call an arch-Catholic. She went to mass at least three times a week, lit candles, and said Novenas for all of her 16 children and 60+ grandchildren- and all of the great and great-great grandchildren, too, as well as her brothers, sisters and cousins, some neighbors...- with regularity. She still preferred the Latin Mass. And she believed in a woman's right to choose.
I am what the Church refers to as a lapsed Catholic, though I think ex-Catholic is probably more correct. I left the Church for my own reasons. And while I'm sure that there are conservative Catholics who fit your generalization- and it was the conservatism that drove me away at 14 years old- there exists a very large number of Roman Catholics whose views you project upon them. I daresay that if you put as much time into studying African-Americans as you seem to have studying American Roman Catholics, you'd have us believe that all African-Americans love watermelon and fried chicken.
You are oh so right. While there are plenty of very right-wing anti-abortion Catholics out there, there are also many quietly pro-choice Catholics as well (I even heard a nun state on television that she was pro-choice. Wonder what her bishop thought of that). Kerry, Biden, Pelosi, Kennedy -- all pro-choice. There's even Catholics for Free Choice (I think that's the name), who favor a woman's right to choose.
Hmmm, a woman lying about a pregnancy to whip up the abortion/anti-abortion debate...getting caught in her lies, things getting way beyond what she intendened...getting trapped in those lies, what, 30 years later...
Oh yeah! I remember now! That whole lie that Norma McCorvey was raped! And the whole Roe v. Wade thing made an issue in the first place!! Gotta love the irony!
BTW I'm pro-abortion, not just pro-choice before you hate, lol. I really don't understand why people are so unreasonable on this issue...1st tri no abortion can be made illegal; 3rd tri, none can be legal; 2nd it's up to each state to decide. Quick, clean, simple and reasonable. And this time we actually do it right, with an actual Amendment not another legislation from the bench.
The anti-mother, anti-choice movement are as phony as this deranged "April's Mom" person. Disgusting!
Mr. Amato's assessment of the anti-choice movement discounting the pregnant mother as merely a vessel brings to mind the excellent film adaptation of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," starring Robert Duvall and made memorable by the late great Natasha Richardson's searing portrayal.
and it is a movie that does need to be remade....and i hate movies
although richardson was captivating in the movie...the rest was pretty pathetic
but both book and movie did show what happens when zealots pervert the bible for their own needs
who lost his first wife to cancer
she was diagnosed while pregnant....and was given a choice...start chemo, which would probably force her to get an abortion, or go through with the pregnancy and begin chemo after the birth...but by then, it may be too late
she chose to carry the baby to term...and it was too late when she began treatment
however, it was her choice
the fucking wingnuts would want to remove her choice...and that cannot be allowed
twat. she ought to be forced to carry the dead baby doll around w/ her for the rest of her life.
"There is a sucker born every minute." for your dumb-arsed wingnuts
"In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." for your girl caught up in a popular lie.
I believe the proper term is moral little people.
W
Moral gnomes.
...and perhaps I havent thought it fully through.
Scam, perhaps. Donations she took in I might see some lines there, but I doubt laws are in effect that could be applied unless she took cash for 'charity'
But was she under any obligation to be fully truthful? This becomes like a serial for me, and she had a rapt audience to string along every episode. I see a swarm of fools looking to prop something up to support their cause only to find a front.
Maybe she should start a church; seems rather popular these days.
Can't see the difference between this scam and any other religious organization's daily business.
Jesus didn't call them 'sheep' for nothing.
Embarrassing, check.
Infuriating, check.
Insulting of other people's opinions, check.
Bad taste, check.
Except for a lack of the redeeming value of making money on it, not that different from what Sasha Baron Cohen does for a living.
Oh, this little sideshow is far more entertaining than Borat. And I laughed my ass off at Borat. So the Reich-wing, Christofascist, mouth-breathing, hypocritical, bible-thumping troglodytes got their come-uppance? My only disappointment in all of this is that I didn't think of it first.
I guess one could say she made a monkey of folks.
After posting over 40 posts TODAY, we should all IGNORE USER )o(. ysbaddaden needs to get a life but then again he is a cracker from Plano, Texass so he has no life. He's a republiKKKon cracker who is just taking up space.
At last you-all are calling them what they really are..."ANTI-CHOICE", not "pro-life"!!! BRAVO!
There's nothing dumber than a cultist.
99.9% of the anti choice people have never done one thing for a child after they "saved" them from being aborted.
You know, LOVE THE FETUS, HATE THE CHILD.
Education: NO WAY, pay for it yourself at "charter" schools that teach kids the world is flat and 6,000 years old.
Healthcare: NO WAY, pay for it or die (after you are born of course)
Clean air: NO WAY, republiKKKon don't cause pollution, they say Democrats do SO forget it.
Antidiscrimination: NO WAY, if you are white, old and male, the republiKKKons love you. Anybody else, forget it. We should be thankful they allow us to breath.
If these nut jobs want to get all worked up about a fiction, so be it.
Please?
I'm not surprised that Evangelikills would be duped by this, considering their general (willful) lack of critical thinking.
What I am surprised by is how quickly this sham swelled to a popular movement in a relatively short time. That's what's scary.
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