For one pro-abortion media group, exposing personal and private information, a practice known as “doxxing,” seems like perfectly acceptable behavior, especially if the target is supposedly “anti-choice.”
RH Reality Check published, and then retracted, an article this week revealing the alleged sexual preferences of Holly Kaitlyn O’Donnell, the whistleblower at the center of a series of videos aimed at uncovering Planned Parenthood’s practice of harvesting fetal organs.
O’Donnell reportedly has a profile on OkCupid and FetLife.com (short for “fetish life”).
“Until now, not much has been known about O’Donnell. She claimed to have been a phlebotomist (a specialist at drawing blood), but her tracks had been difficult to trace, especially for an American in her mid-20s who grew up in the digital age,” RH Reality Check’s Sharon Coutts wrote in the now-deleted article.
“That changed yesterday, when RH Reality Check identified O’Donnell’s accounts on the dating site OkCupid, and using the same handle, her account on the photo-sharing site, Instagram. We also identified her account on FetLife.com,” the article added, “a site that provides the ‘easiest ways to find new kinky friends.'”
RH Reality Check dug through years of photos, including pictures of O’Donnell’s friends and family, personal information, references to O’Donnell’s reading preferences, Instagram posts, public records and dating surveys.
The article then published in great detail the most salacious bits of information gleaned from its investigation of O’Donnell’s personal life.
The “posts indicate that her views may not be as politically palatable as the wholesome, socially conservative image that [the Center for Medical Progress has] sought to cultivate over the course of their seven-week PR campaign against Planned Parenthood,” Coutts wrote.
O’Donnell herself is not in favor of shutting down Planned Parenthood.
“I don’t think I have any authority to outright say, ‘Oh yeah, shut down Planned Parenthood,’ because they do good for women,” she said in a recent podcast interview.
Though Coutts claims she and her employers are open-minded people accepting of others’ sexual preferences, the article nevertheless features a heavy dosage of moral preening.
“[O]n one hand, the fact that O’Donnell does not conform to the anti-choice stereotype suggests that perhaps the 24-year-old drew her own conclusions about fetal tissue donation after observing the practices she claims to have witnessed in her prior job, and not because of any pre-existing ideological or political views,” Coutts wrote.
“However,” she added, “many of the anti-choice politicians who have openly supported the Center for Medical Progress’s campaign against Planned Parenthood and have aligned themselves with O’Donnell — including some of the nation’s most prominent Republicans and evangelical leaders — would be quick to condemn O’Donnell’s other views and conduct as immoral.”
“Yet they are happy to support O’Donnell in anointing herself as the moral arbiter of millions of women who seek abortion care in the United States every year,” she added.
The rest of the 1,660-word article went on to suggest that O’Donnell’s somewhat spicy personal life somehow undermines her testimony in the Center for Medical Progress’ videos.
RH Reality Check’s editor-in-chief, Jodi Jacobson, known also for downplaying the trial of the infamous abortionist Kermit Gosnell as a local crime story, initially cheered the “doxxing” Thursday evening.
“Anti-choicers hate sex, except when its [for] them,” she said on social media, suggesting that it is a contradiction for a person to have non-traditional sexual preferences and be opposed to harvesting organs from the remains of aborted children.
After RH Reality Check exposed O’Donnell, the pro-abortion group received a significant amount of pushback online.
As it turns out, the Internet frowns on doxxing.
The webpage that used to display the article now has a message that reads, “404: There’s nothing at this URL. Use the menu above to get back on track. Or try searching at the top right to find what you’re looking for.”
The pro-abortion group’s Twitter account has also deleted all references to the now-junked article, and Jacobson has since “apologized” for the doxxing.
“Our reporting on O’Donnell was intended to focus on the hypocrisy of a person who has and wants to enjoy sexual freedom and autonomy all while seeking to deny this right to others. Full stop,” she wrote Friday. “[O]ur piece clearly crossed a line by providing far too much information about her personal life, which in turn made it seem like we were engaging in the same practice of shaming someone for sex we decry on the right.”
“Again, I take full responsibility for these mistakes and we have recommitted ourselves to and reinforced the editorial processes we normally have in place to ensure these kind of things do not happen,” she added.
Her “apology” includes a plea for donations and a timely but seemingly out-of-nowhere swipe at disgraced reality TV star Josh Duggar.
Jacobson did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s requests for further comment.
The Center for Medical Progress, a pro-life activist group, has released seven undercover videos, three of which feature O’Donnell recounting her experiences working as a lab assistant for a StemExpress, a Planned Parenthood affiliate engaged in the practice of harvesting fetal tissue.
In one video, O’Donnell discussed her experience working with an abortionist who extracted a brain from a live child. In another video, O’Donnell suggested that certain organs were salvaged without the consent of the mothers.
The videos have focused on Planned Parenthood’s methods for procuring fetal organs for donation to various medical groups, and have led to charges from conservatives that the group may be breaking the law by profiting from those donations.
The videos have spurred lawmakers in Congress to launch two investigations into Planned Parenthood’s practices, and have inspired 13 states to move towards defunding the group.
