US couple behind birthornot.com are Internet fraudsters

LONDON - The US couple, who started the website birthornot.com, on which they claim to be torn about aborting or keeping their healthy baby boy, have been revealed to be Internet fraudsters.

Minneapolis couple, Pete and Alisha Arnold, both 30, had set up the website to ask the public to vote online and help them decide.

According to alternative weekly City Pages, Pete is a pro-life activist who posts his beliefs on the Internet under the alias Zeeboid, the name of a right-wing crusader who believes abortion is murder.

The couple kept up the anti-abortion hoax and website, complete with scans of the foetus they claim to have nicknamed Wiggles.

After it went viral last week critics were outraged by Birth or Not, but within hours of their hoax being revealed, the Arnolds removed their YouTube page, despite keeping up the voting.

“This is shocking. The first thing that came to my mind when I heard of this was the Roman Colosseum when the mob picked who lived and who died,” the Daily Mail quoted Mary Spaulding Balch, director of state legislation for National Right to Life, as saying.

“They are talking about a baby that is 17 weeks old, it has a beating heart, its brain is working and nerve endings throughout its body.

“By 20 weeks when the vote is up it will be developed enough to feel excruciating pain. What they are doing is beyond comprehension,” she said.

Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Chicago-based Pro-life action league, added: “I am horrified at the depths to which they have sunk and their failure to comprehend the dignity and value of human life.”

The Arnolds launched their blog on September 28 with the news that Mrs Arnold was pregnant. (ANI)