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BEWARE of "ANTIs" POSING AS PRO-CHOICE ON THE NET

Posted May 6, 1998

 I have recently joined Women Leaders Online and they have released the following statement. Their information is usually reliable so I would take their admonition seriously.

(Please repost widely)

Someone who goes by the name Kelly Knight (choice4us@aol.com) has been active on on-line pro-choice lists for at least 6 months, and has tried to recruit pro-choice individuals to a new list set up for their own purposes, which they had disguised as a prochoice list (choice4us).

It has come to my attention that this person is actually an anti-choice activist [or a combination of 2 activists] who is systematically

  1. joining or attempting to join pro-choice lists
  2. gathering the e-mail addresses of pro-choice activists as well as other personal information and
  3. using these addresses to attempt to establish this new and "pro-choice" list called "choice4us", under false pretenses.

The invitations were signed by the pro-choice impersonator, "Kelly Knight". Kelly was "outed" when a colleague smelled a rat. "Kelly's" post office box turns out to be the same as one Steve Ertelt, who publishes a web site called the "Ultimate Pro-Life Resource List" (http://www.prolife.org/ultimate) as well as several other internet-based prolife "projects".

He has an associate/partner named Sally Winn.

The following information on Ertelt/Winn is to the best of my knowledge and is mostly available via web searches. Ertelt and Winn have been involved in several student anti-choice "activism" efforts.

Ertelt rather recently (mid 90's) attended Hendrix College in Arkansas where he served as newsletter editor, and then President, of "American Collegians for Life" and wrote voluminously (several articles still can be found on the net) on various anti-choice, anti-feminist topics for a college publication.

According to a reliable source in Arkansas, he was eventually banned from using the college computers/internet and he left the campus. The background to this seems to be that he had misrepresented himself, via the internet, as the person running a pro-choice Republican group, and attempted to have members of the pro-choice group send their contributions to *him*, instead. So this is not the first time he has attempted pro-choice infiltration via dishonesty.

More recently, Ertelt/Winn maintain several internet projects in addition to the "Ultimate Pro-Life Resource List". For example, Ertelt and Winn have created a site to promulgate their personal feelings about the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which they call "Roe v. Wade: 25 Years of Life Denied" (http://www.prolife.org/rvw).

Another anti-choice website from Winn/Ertelt is the "Crisis Pregnancy Centers Online" at http://www.prolife.org/cpcs-online. This site maintains a list of anti-choice, anti-abortion centers, which usually try to masquerade as neutral help for a crisis pregnancy, throughout the U.S. & Canada.

Another connected site is Ertelt's "The Armchair Lobbyist" at http://www.prolife.org/tal This site attempts to provide anti-choice information about state and federal legislation, anti-choice events, and national news related to abortion.

Also, (and not surprisingly) Ertelt is credited within the "Priests for Life" website, (general URL - http://www.priestsforlife.org/intro/introbrochure.html) as providing them with [anti-choice] news items with a link, and also may have helped them with their original internet work at one point.

A further Ertelt/Winn site is called rather stealthily, imho, "Women and Children First", and is found at http://www.prolife.org/wcf. They call this their "partnership" and say that through this organization, they use "the boundless tools of the Internet to disseminate information about [anti-choice] issues to people worldwide". It appears to be the umbrella organization for their internet activities. They include the following address: Women and Children First, 20030 Lions Gate Dr., Humble, TX 77338-1961.

The "Pro-Life Infonet" is a anti-choice listserve run by Ertelt (ertelt@prolife.org) which is a free e-mail list that distributes anti-choice information, legislative alerts, press releases, opinion pieces etc. ("To subscribe, send the message "subscribe" to: infonet-list-request@prolife.org; for more information, send an empty email to: infonet-info@prolife.org")

As a one-time subscriber I discovered his speciality seemed to be taking mainstream news articles and press releases and putting them in a new guise with his anti-choice and anti-woman negative "spin" freely added. Although this emaill list distributes only anti-choice propaganda, it is designed to appear to be an impartial news wire, like AP or Reuters. Its purpose is to fool unsuspecting readers, whether journalists or ordinary netizens.

Winn/Ertelt are also known to have been involved in the following organizations:

After a few college years in Arkansas, Ertelt lived in Indianapolis, where he worked for the state affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee, but has recently moved to Houston.

There is no doubt that Ertelt (and others) will continue to attempt to use deceit to further their agenda, and the intent of this notice is to remind and warn all activists on the Internet that things are not always what they appear. So please, be very cautious when dealing with someone on line who you do not personally know. And never disclose "secure" information on line - especially any information that you would not want an anti to know!

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