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June 18, 2009When a Pro-Life Blogger Goes Too Far
The case of 'April's Mom' is less an indictment on the pro-life movement and more the story of a deeply pained woman.
Last Sunday night, a popular pro-life blogger known as "April's Mom" or "B" posted the tragic news: Her newborn daughter, whom she had carried to term though diagnosed with a terminal case of Trisomy 13 and HPE, had died hours after a difficult home birth. This marked the end of the nine-month journey she had shared with the world on her blog, Little One April, where she chronicled her struggles, pains, and hopes as she traveled the journey many would have ended after such devastating news. She wrote often of the centrality of her Christian faith and pro-life values to her decision and motivation, and filled her posts with Bible verses and Christian music. Her readers lauded her courage, prayed for God to save the baby, and sent gifts anticipating her arrival: a baby hat, a pair of little shoes, a hair bow, a crocheted blanket. Pro-life bloggers rallied around this embodiment of the cause, linking to the blog and adding "Pray for April Rose" buttons to their own.
It could have ended there, but "April's mom" decided to post a picture of the baby, a picture that was quickly identified by some readers as not a baby at all, but a "Reborn doll," a vinyl toy made to look like a real newborn. The entire story quickly unraveled; April's mom was actually 26-year-old social worker Rebecca Beushausen, a Chicago-area woman who had not been pregnant at all, though she had lost a child in 2005.
All that is left of the blog now is an apology - and a media mess. In her final post, Beushausen wrote, "I am a Christian and while I wrote many of my posts under dishonest contexts, the God I shared with all of you and wrote about is still God; the Creator or life, Father and Savior. I hope to regain my relationship back with Him, fully, myself." She went on to apologize for her actions - she never intended for anyone outside her immediate circle to find or read the blog - and to link readers to a site for families actually dealing with T13 pregnancies.
So why did this happen? Beushausen told the Chicago Tribune that "I've always liked writing. It was addictive to find out I had a voice that people wanted to hear. Soon I was getting 100,000 hits a week, and it just got out of hand. I didn't know how to stop. . . . One lie led to another." But there's no hiding on the Internet; though Beushausen scrambled to remove the blog, along with its accompanying Twitter and Facebook pages, when it became clear she had blown her cover, the details of her identity came spilling out over the blogosphere and then the national news over the course of a few days.
While many of the blog's followers feel emotionally exploited - like Jennifer McKinney, who at Rebecca's urging promoted it on her popular site MyCharmingKids.net - others were at least happy to have helped in some way; Jennifer Myers, who, along with her husband sold T-shirts and sent money to support April, told the Tribune of Rebecca, "She's someone who needed love and attention, and we gave her that."
In the wake of the Tiller shooting, the rhetoric of the pro-life movement has already found itself under more intense media scrutiny. Just how far will we go to defend the right to life? How far is too far?
Beushausen reports that in place of the gifts, she is now receiving hate mail. Just two weeks ago she wrote these eerily prophetic words on her blog:
We can't do this life on our own. Or, well, I will speak for myself; I know, I can't do it on my own. But more than that, I have been created by God, for God, in love. And He lives in and through me, and He weeps when I weep . . .And, yes, it does feel horrible at times. But He said that He will never leave me or forsake me, and that nothing and nobody can take me from His hands. And I don't know how all of this works out, but I believe that if I continue to do what He wants me to do, tomorrow will be better. And if tomorrow doesn't seem less painful and alone, than the next day, or maybe the next…
One thing I do know is that the hurt can't be forever, because this [life] isn't forever, and knowing that promise from Him to me, from Him to you, makes the hardest parts of life a bit easier to bear.
Ultimately, Rebecca Beushausen's blog experiment is not one with far-reaching implications for the pro-life movement or its rhetoric; it is a story of one troubled woman's struggle to deal with deep pain. And to that, we must respond in love, affirming the unconditional love of our God, whose glory is not diminished by the broken people who serve him.
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Comments
Amen to the last sentence.
Posted By: Drew | June 18, 2009 11:09 AM
So sad! I pray that the family and friends around Rebecca can comfort her in her systemic grief. Yet we must remember to separate the cause from the criminal: if Christianity were to be solely judged on its adherents, we'd be in a heap of trouble. So too does the pro-life movement have its value, despite the human sinfulness that surrounds everything we do.
Posted By: Eric | June 18, 2009 11:19 AM
Thanks for writing this! It is heartening to see something written about this subject that isn't hateful, condescending, or arrogant. Eric, I appreciate your comment: "if Christianity were to be solely judged on its adherents, we'd be in a heap of trouble." So true, and something we all need to be reminded of.
Posted By: Lauren | June 18, 2009 11:53 AM
http://www.shepheardillustration.com/abortion.jpg
Comments?
Posted By: Rocky Shepheard | June 18, 2009 3:51 PM
I am Beccah's uncle, and thought I needed to respond to this article. Actually, I'm making my rounds on any and all blogs that I can find in order to set the record straight about my niece, and to see if I can stop these scams from continuing.
Let me start by stating that I am a Christian. No that this has anything at all to do with this subject, but I thought I would point this out since this is a Christian blog. I attended Olivet University when Beccah was in her Senior year, Although I am OLDER than Beccah....I just decided to attend college at a later age!
The comments about forgiveness are very appropriate, and I obviously believe in forgiveness...for myself and for others. But I think we have to go beyond forgiveness in regards to Beccah. She is not this "hurting" woman that your article purports her to be. The is/was not her "first rodeo" in regards to scamming people. Let me be more specific...
About 2 years ago I was contacted by a couple that was searching for Beccah. This couple told me that they were going to be adopting Beccah's unborn baby. Well, that was news to ME and the rest of the family, since we didn't even realize she was pregnant! I called my brother Dean (Beccahs father), and he told me that none of it was true, and that is was just some people playing a strange prank. I accepted what my brother said, and never pursued it.
Well, I have since found out that it was NOT a prank on the part of this couple. They really were going to adopt a baby from Beccah, or at least this is what THEY thought. I won't go into anymore detail at this time about this, but needless to say, it was a scam that Beccah was pulling off on these innocent people.
On a personal note... about 2 years ago, or less, I was scammed out of over $8,000 by Beccahs father. I won't yet go into great detail about this, but I will state that Dean stated that the money went to Beccah. I have no idea, but I would guess that Beccah must have played a role. This scam hit me hard, and I still have not fully recovered from it.
There are many other things that I can go into, but I choose not to...yet.
Forgiveness is one thing, but allowing a person like this to slide by, and move forward with scam after scam, is simply not prudent. And, in all honesty, it is our DUTY to see that these scams do not continue.
So, for all those that feel some kind of "pity" or feel sorry for Beccah...Please don't. And I say this as her uncle. If this were the FIRST time she had ever done something like this, then I would be the first to go to her side and try to comfort her and get her help. But this is just the latest in a long line of scams she has attempted. And I, as her uncle, feel a duty to put an END to it all by letting people know.
Derwin Beushausen
dbeushausen@gmail.com
Posted By: Derwin Beushausen | June 26, 2009 7:20 AM
Everyone is reporting that the "baby" died, but that is not true.
The last post written on the April Rose blog was that Beccah was at the hospital with the baby, who, at 19 hours old, was STILL ALIVE.
The Chicago Tribune got the facts wrong from the start & everyone has latched on to their version of the truth, which is, unfortunately, erroneous.
Beccah went around posting the link to her blog from the very first day she started it. The goal from the beginning was to scam people and make money. She latched on to other big-name bloggers to lend credibility to her story and to drive more traffic to her blog (to increase hits and make more $$$).
This was NOT a matter of her being overwhelmed by people suddenly showing up to her blog. This was a deliberate act of deceit.
Forgive her, yes, but do not forget what she did, and do not enable her to do it again by painting her as a poor little victim of a hard life. LOTS of people are abused, mistreated and endure tragedy, but THEY don't turn to deceiving thousands of people and scamming them out of their money.
Posted By: Kate | June 27, 2009 4:18 PM
There is much more to this story. Please see my new blog on the subject. It chronicles my email interaction with Beccah that urged her, under biblical guidelines, to come clean before the "birth."
Jesus left us some pretty clear instructions about what and how we are to react to those who misuse the grace of God. I examine the scripture to see what the Christian's response should be. Please take a look.
http://www.tellthechurch.blogspot.com/
Posted By: lorri steer | July 18, 2009 10:15 AM