Anti-choice blogger fabricated pregnancy, dying baby
Until recently "April's Mom" was known as a highly-trafficked pro-life blogger who wrote about her struggle being pregnant with a terminally ill fetus.
After readers emailed their support, sent gifts (and anti-choice advertisers lined up), "April's Mom" blogged that she had given birth to a baby who had lived just a few hours - she even posted a picture of April. But as it turns out - the whole thing was a lie:
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."
"April's Mom" is really Beccah Beushausen, a 26 year-old social worker.
"I know what I did was wrong," Beushausen told the Chicago Tribune. "I've been getting hate mail. I'm sorry because people were so emotionally involved."
Well, you know, that tends to happen when you make up a dying baby. Though as angry as this makes me, I'm with Sadie at Jezebel on this: "It's tempting of course to use this as a chance to take an easy bash at anti-choice, and revel in anything that makes them look foolish, but frankly, I'm just sad for this woman." As am I.
For more on how conservatives are reacting (oh so classily) to this story, check out Jesse at Pandagon.
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That is so sad that anyone would fake that kind of story...is that a 'street cred' thing that everyone is employing now in political movements? I hate that you can't be white and defend the rights of minorities...that you can't be rich and defend the poor...etc. etc. (Of course you CAN be, but you'll have tons of people telling you that you 'don't really understand' and downplay your work and passion).
I hate that everyone needs to have a sob story or one that applies to the specific political movement. You get whack jobs that take that way too far.
Either that or munchausen? Either way, ugh.
"that you can't be rich and defend the poor"
But that's different from being one race, or sexuality, and defending another. You can't change your race or sexuality, but you do have some control over the amount of money you own. For the people who are poor and uneducated, there's not much control, but the point is that the rich person doesn't have to stay rich, so it does look odd for a very rich person to defend the poor without, say, donating to charity.
You get what I mean? I'm not phrasing it too well, sorry.
Yeah...I know that that one is a tougher point (because why can't a billionaire just become a millionaire and give the rest of his/her money to different projects?), but the main point is that I think that it's crazy that we are constantly judged within our respective political circles. We need to have first-hand experience with something or our work isn't worth anything.
For example, I usually need to pull out the 'my parents were immigrants that fled oppressive countries' line (which is true, by the way!) in order to have any cred when arguing abount certain issues. I'm not saying that all pressure is bad, but sometimes I think that people are driven to exaggerate and lie by these judgements. I don't know if that had any influence in this specific situation...it's sad and reprehensible either way.
I read about this story last week in the Redeye and was wondering when it would pop up on here.
Apparently Beccah Beushausen claims the story isn't entirely made up and that basically this same thing happened to her a few years ago. She said she started this blog as a way of coping with her loss and then just got carried away once she received so many hits and support from stranger. And then one lie led to another lie.
Yeah...you know, again - I feel compassion for this woman. I think she obviously is troubled. But this went beyond using poetic license to write about something close to her life experience - she posed a doll as a dying baby. That to me just goes beyond any sort of cathartic writing process...
Oh I totally agree. I wasn't defending her at all. I think she has some serious problems and should probably seek some form of help. I was just saying what I had read.
If she had just said at the beginning of her blog that this was a fictional account and she was using this story as a way to get over/cope with the death of her own child then that would be one thing, but she didn't.
son's death in '05-
has anyone verified?
perhaps one last lie?
Just for the record, she's not a social worker. She just works in the social service.
I had never heard of this blog before, but I am finding this story so upsetting and sickening.
Kristine, the Chicago Tribune identifies her a social worker - if you're getting different info somewhere, feel free to link!
I got it from her blog: http://littleoneapril.blogspot.com/
Although who knows how much truth is in that?
A lot of the commenters at the Tribune (I know, I know) accuse the reporter of getting duped by Beushausen too.
She sounds like a pathalogical liar to me. Are we even sure she's an anti-choice activists? Or is she a scammer who rightly identified anti-choice activists as people who'd be suckered by a story like that?
Oh really? That I didn't hear. If she is also lying to the reporter about how she really did have a child that died and this was her way to cope then my sympathy is definitely fading quickly.
This woman was obviously sick. Why is this even an issue for Feministing?
I think, as a news story, it's indicative of a symptom of some of the lunacy that infects quarters of the pro-life movement. She might just have been a cynical con-artist 9using the internet for a scam? Original!) Or it might actually have been a desperate cry for help that turned out to work to her pecuniary gain. Either way, she capitalized on "pro-life" sentiment and dramatized and sentimentalized her "decision" not to abort a dangerously ill fetus that turned out to be a creepy doll.
So, at least it's interesting, on several levels. and sad.
We have probably just as many nut-jobs on our side.
Oh yeah, any true believer, ideologue, or mentally unstable person is difficult to deal with, no matter what their political view. However, I notice that "our side" hasn't shot anyone recently. Or blown anything up.
Well, I am sure you don't mean it exactly this way, but it reminds me of how people love to read exactly what they want into the psyche/motives of nother person, especially when it will confirm their already-formed stereotypes.
I recall a post here about women in some conservative religious groups who made a lot about submitting to their husbands. It was definitely not MY thing, by any stretch, but I am fairly tolerant when it comes to people's decisions about how their beliefs translate into behavior. I was appalled, howevere, to see responses from a few people who decided that was just a veiled longing to give head.
Which, IMO, is something your mind might conjur in passing and speculate about, but about which no reasonable person would actually make public diagnoses of others. Unless that person just finds in it a confirmation of his own stereotypes and prejudices. ("Those religious ladies are all just repressed sluts")
I don't know if that makes any sense as a comparison, but it's what I thought about here.
Well, I'm not diagnosing her psyche; I'm saying that either something in her caused her to do this, which is sort of sad, or she's a con artist who was looking to make money. Either is a logical inference from the facts. I don't even know whether or not she is, herself, actually anti-choice. But for someone to fake the death of a child for sympathy? i don't know how to see any motive but a bad motive or a seriously disturbed mind.
I don't even really care about her politics: this just happens to play into a very convenient narrative filled with lots of very fundamentally strange people who love web pages with sick babies, animated gifs and mp3s of Christian soft rock playing to show how sad it is, but how great god is, and oh yeah, if you wanna donate, how sweet that would be: only it's a blatantly obvious looking doll. It's a very ironic ending. She's not the only person I find strange in this story.
If she was looking to make money, which is entirely possible, then why not criticize her for that? (Which still would be a stretch for Feministing, but would fit in with the pet theme of "antichoice hypocrites")
But, again, the way Jessica posted it here makes it seem like she WASN'T going to do that. So WHY is that what everyone keeps talking about? I would really be interested to hear from Jessica on this.
You and I seem to be hitting a brick wall, no? Do you disagree with anything specifically that I said, or do you think that I'm being anti-pro-choice for no reason, or that I'm misconstruing this story?
Without further clarification, I"ll only say that I AM criticizing her for trying to scam people. I would also criticize any number of televangelists, proposition 8 funding churches, or conservative hack radio show idiots for making money by playing off of peoples' deeply held beliefs, their emotional weak spots, or their ignorant views. And that's what she did. This wasn't a "Oh, my laptop was stolen, please send me money," scam, nor a "I'm a deposed Nigerian Prince" scam, this was a "My poor dead baby, which is even sadder because I'm pro-life scam." She very deliberately manipulated (whether she's sick or not) a sad story that she knew would touch the hearts of a lot of people, and did so, at least by the end, for profit. And that story was used by pro-life people before it was exposed as a lie, and that sort of malarkey is somewhat abhorrent to me.
Jessica has expressed her sympathy and compassion for this person-she's a better person than I am, because I feel deficient on both those scores, being fairly cynical. But I didn't personally attack her, nor violate the comments policy, or do anything that I think is too offensive here, and Jessica put this article up for discussion, so I'm not sure what Jessica thinks has anything to do with what I think. She might disagree with me, fine, that's valid.
this just happens to play into a very convenient narrative
And this is part of the point. It plays into this narrative because she herself is a part of that culture, and feels compelled by these kinds of stories and the guilt trips that they're used to foist on other women who don't choose to carry their terminally ill babies to term. In other words, it appears to be calculated to play into this very narrative and produce these very kinds of reactions.
Because it shows how stories like this are used by extremists to rally support and polarize the views of those who may start out in a more moderate position.
Oh, you mean like,
"It's tempting of course to use this as a chance to take an easy bash at anti-choice, and revel in anything that makes them look foolish"?
Cause that's all I am seeing here.
The odds are that she is not just some pathological liar who made this up to rally prolifers. (There are other, legitimate stories of women in the same situation, which may or may not serve that function, I don't know.) The she may be pthological, or just in desperate need for her life to have some meaning. And she deserves pity for that, of course....
But I see no reason to post about it here...*except* to point at her as an anti-choicer and say, "Ha! Liar! Nutcase!"
Which is so wrong on so many levels. Not the least of which it seems awfully like making fun of the mentally ill, or even worse: using them to make your own political statements.
Sorry, all I keep thinking is, "What would this post be like if this woman were not publically anti-abortion? Wouldn't it be a lot different? Would it even be here at all?"
Have you even read Jessica's post? She's saying she feels sorry for this women because she obviously needs help. She's saying those that are doing what you're saying are wrong and classless.
Of course I read the post. I just can't figure out why this is on here? She is just posting to say that she feels sorry for the lady? Then why link to the aformentioned NOT-classy Pandagon group? Just to get in a shot at "conservatives"?
Notice, that even if Jessica agrees it is not right to use this story as a way to poke fun at anti-choicers, that is STILL the reason, according to commenters here, for posting it.
Well then I would read zp27's and Rachel's posts again because they clearly explain the reason behind this post. If you're still confused I don't know what to tell you.
Of course this women merits our pity and probably some mental health treatment. But this story is relevant to feminism because of the long history of anti-choicers and others who oppose women's freedoms and choices seizing upon stories like this and making them into poster children and the "ideal women" to whom those of us who demand freedom and autonomy cannot measure up. This is a classic situation in the history of this kind of rhetoric, and this particular case shows how a person who's feeling a bit isolated and lost can get swept up, first by their ideology, and then by the sort of fellow-feeling and support offered by the anti-choice community. That doesn't mean this fellow-feeling and support are bad. But this case offers a particularly useful glimpse at the workings of this kind of socio-political dynamic.
Again, I could see how this could be the topic of a Feministing post. But it wasn't. It was a kind of "quick hit" in disguise that relies on stereotypes about the parties involved. (This is not common here, but I have seen it before prat.wrt religion.)
And there is the stated desire not to use the story to poke fun, but without some better discussion or framing I can't figure out what else it is up here for?
As for your points in general about "what it means," First: I find your comments about those who hold women up to an ideal standard with this kind of story very intriguing. Just for the sake of argument, though, doe the existence of abad example mean that the example itself is wrong? (I am not arguing for the "you should all be like her, or elses" side, just saying that your reasoning might not stand up.)
Second: This story illustrates, I think, a good example of how NOT to conduct social discourse.
Until the facts are known better (and assuming they ever will be), we have to admit that it is at least as likely that this woman is mentally ill, as it is that she was a scam artist; those are both more likely than that she is a deeply cynical manipulator of the prolife crowd who is working to rally them to extremism.
To use this story as a jumping-off point for most kinds of discourse, then,is shaky because of the inherent pitfalls in each of the premises of why it happened. If she is in need of treatment, then to use her story is another kind of cynicism and despicable. If she is a scam artist, then that is nothing in itself politically-oriented; as remarked above there are plenty of nutcases and scam artists who cater to the left-er side for their business.
The same thing goes if she is a manipulator bent on stirring up the prolifers. Although in that case there certainly could be the basis for a reflection on the socio-political dynamic, as you put it, it shouldn't be undertaken until we can rule out the first two possibilities for the reasons I stated above.
Finally, if you detach the story from the woman herself and want to use it as a reflection on something like guilt tactics employed by prolife crusaders, then I can't object to that. But I would stress that the story MUST be detached from the woman herself, either by time (waiting a while before using the story) or by circumstances (as in, being sure that nothing like mental illness is at play)...or by good writing which takes the time to delineate what is mean and what is relevant. Which was not, obviously, done here in the ten or so lines posted by Jessica.
Sorry so long. Maybe I should figure out how to post on the community blog and avoid this problem of having a lot of thoughts that take over the thread.
also, above it should say,
"good writing that takes the time to delineate what is *meant*..."
not "what is mean"
I don't mean to claim that the existence of a bad example means the example itself is wrong (at least not for that reason). However, this is not a contextless case. There's a lot of rhetoric aimed at women who discover their babies have some terminal illness and wish to have a late term abortion to avoid the birthing-and-watching-your-baby-die-a-painful-death scenario. There's a lot of shaming involved that hits parents who experience this at a time when they're most vulnerable and in need of support. And this woman was familiar with that sector of the anti-choice movement and was knowingly playing into it. It's clear from the way she worded things and the images she chose that she understood her demographic very well, and bought into their worldview 100%. And this doesn't preclude the possibility of mental health issues or cynical manipulation. I think all three could be present, and this would still be a good example of the social dynamic surrounding this issue.
Second, I agree that stories like this deserve a much more nuanced discussion. But this is the nature of blogging, and sometimes an interesting story that merits discussion comes along when you're busy and the best you can do is throw it out there and hope it starts a good dialogue.
I have a friend who just a month ago had her 2 month old die of congenital heart failure, which they had been tracking in utero. It was devastating for her, and I really hope she doesn't hear about this. It would be too much I imagine.
Well, I don't think either Jesse or the commenters on that entry at Pandagon.net will be giving anyone lessons on classiness anytime soon.