{"id":921,"date":"2009-06-12T11:20:59","date_gmt":"2009-06-12T11:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/grotesque-con-women-for-life-t.html"},"modified":"2009-06-12T11:20:59","modified_gmt":"2009-06-12T11:20:59","slug":"grotesque-con-women-for-life-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/grotesque-con-women-for-life-t.html","title":{"rendered":"Grotesque Con-Women for Life (The April’s Mom Scam)"},"content":{"rendered":"

What an infuriating story. The Chicago Tribune (aka MSM) reports:<\/a><\/p>\n

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.
\nEvery night for the past two months, thousands of pro-life moms across the nation logged on to a blog run by the suburban Chicago woman who identified herself only as “B” or “April’s Mom.”
\nPeople 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
\nBy 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.
\nThere was only one problem with the unfolding tragedy: None of it was true.
\nNot 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A few thoughts:
\nThose of us who love “user generated content” have to remember that we don’t know how much of it is 100%, 100% fake, or somewhere in between (hence, it may be that actual “journalism” still has a role in American society)
\nGetting people to pray for <\/em>a scam? Manipulating people’s love of God, their inner-most compassionate impulses? Getting people to twist their own relationships with the divine for a fake tragedy? Stunning.
\nPro-lifers (and any pro-choicers out there thinking of comparable scams): each time something like this happens, people will trust stories like this less. Women who have real<\/em> stories like this will now be believed a bit less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What an infuriating story. The Chicago Tribune (aka MSM) reports: 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 past two months, thousands of pro-life moms across the nation logged on to a blog run by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nGrotesque Con-Women for Life (The April's Mom Scam) - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/grotesque-con-women-for-life-t.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Grotesque Con-Women for Life (The April's Mom Scam) - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What an infuriating story. 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