A website designed to collect ‘whistleblower’ tips on people who have – or ‘aid and abet’ – abortions in Texas is having trouble staying online.
Prolifewhistleblower.com was launched to support the state’s new ban on abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy. According to The Guardian:
An online form allows anyone to submit an anonymous “report” of someone illegally obtaining an abortion, including a section where images can be uploaded for proof.
But pro-choice users had other ideas, bombarding the site with false reports and fabricated data through a campaign primarily organized on Reddit and TikTok.
The New York Times describes how a flood of bogus reports inundated the site:
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, who was a leading proponent of the abortion law, was a violator, according to some of the tips. The fictional characters from Marvel’s Avengers were also apparently seeking abortions, the reports said. Other tips did not point to individuals but instead contained copies of the entire script to the 2007 animated film “Bee Movie.”
One tech-savvy activist, Sean Black, created a program that generates over 1,000 fake reports a day. Others have submitted memes, porn videos, and utter nonsense. All the traffic bogged down the site, which crashed frequently over the weekend.
But merry pranksters gumming up the works was just the start of the site’s woes.
It soon was booted from its website registration provider, GoDaddy.com. A GoDaddy rule prohibits websites from collecting medical information about a third party. (Clearly, “whistleblower” tips on abortions violate that rule.)
The anti-abortion site next turned to Epik, a web hosting company know for embracing right-wing outlets like Gab and 8chan. But Epik, too, refused to provide web services for the company
The website Prolifewhistleblower.com currently redirects to TexasRighttoLife.com.
Kimberlyn Schwartz, a spokesperson for Texas Right to Life told The Daily Beast, “If anti-Lifers want to take our website down, we’ll put it back up. No one can keep us from telling the truth. No one can stop us from saving lives. We are not afraid of the mob. Anti-Life activists hate us because we’re winning.”
Texas’ new abortion law withstood its first Supreme Court test last week, when five justices blocked an emergency appeal to stop its implementation. But the conservative majority on the bench punted on the core issues of its constitutionality. Future lawsuits will likely probe that issue.
In the interim, abortion providers in Texas are turning women away. According to The Texas Tribune, “Three out of the four abortion facilities in San Antonio have temporarily stopped offering the procedure in hopes of avoiding lawsuits from private citizens under Texas’ new restrictive abortion law.”
The Tribune continues:
Some Texans have already flooded abortion clinics out of state, seeking care where laws are less restrictive. But many cannot afford to leave the state, forcing them to carry pregnancies to term or seek out other methods, which could be harmful.
“Right now, people seeking abortion across Texas are panicking — they have no idea where or when they will be able to get an abortion, if ever,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, after the Supreme Court denied the emergency appeal.
