The Texas Abortion “Snitch” Site Is Having a Bad Weekend

When we get news like the story this week, in which the Supreme Court quietly refused to block Texas’s draconian abortion bill, it can feel like things are pretty hopeless. The bill, called the Texas Heartbeat Bill or “SB8,” after its bill number, effectively outlaws abortion at six weeks, or when a “fetal heartbeat” can be detected by a physician. Never mind that many doctors agree that the science behind the bill is bad, perhaps the worst part of it—when forced to choose between many worst parts—is the section that allows fellow Texans to report those who are seeking abortions, as well as those who may have aided and abetted patients, for a potential reward of $10,000.

Because the Supreme Court didn’t actually hear the case, fighting against the bill in court is going to be extremely messy. Instead, the court chose to release an unsigned majority opinion, thereby offering no reasoning behind their decision to effectively reverse Roe v Wade—which the Constitution does not like courts to do! The dissenting Supreme Court justices (who made a point to put their names on their dissents so we could, by process of elimination, see who allowed the bill to go through), as well as President Biden have called into question whether any of this is even legal. Meanwhile, Texas clinics that provide healthcare to abortion seekers often see no other choice than to comply with the opaque new rules until they’re given better instructions to follow. So, yeah, that was bleak.

But after all that gloom, some bright spots have appeared. First, choice-protecting internet denizens decided to absolutely flood the so-called “Abortion Snitch Site” (formally called ProLifeWhistleBlower.com) set up by anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life with false reports and Shrek memes. At one point yesterday, I tried to access the site and it was pretty firmly not responding, the input form suddenly gone from the homepage and the rest of the site giving an error message. Thanks for protecting our rights, Internet!

Then last night, we hear that the website’s domain host, GoDaddy.com—who we must will always think of first and foremost as purveyors of those creepily horny aughts Super Bowl commercials—had found the Abortion Snitch site to be in violation of their terms of service. Per Gizmodo:

"...the very nature of the website appeared to run counter to GoDaddy’s terms of service, which stipulate that customers cannot use its platform in a manner that 'violates the privacy or publicity rights of another User or any other person or entity, or breaches any duty of confidentiality that you owe to another User or any other person or entity.'"

Apparently GoDaddy agreed, and told the site’s administrators that they had 24 hours to migrate to a new domain host or they were getting booted. Aww, the Abortion Snitch Site is having a bad weekend, huh?

TBD what’s actually happened to the site as of right now, though it seems that IP addresses from California to New York to Texas are no longer being given access, for what the error message that now pops up when you navigate to it calls “security reasons.” I assume when they say “security reasons'' they mean that Sexy Shrek (link SFW but disturbing in its own right), one of the many memes that Redditors bombarded the site with, is making them feel insecure about their own sexiness. And understandably so! I hope the Texas Right to Life folks who set this website up feel bad about themselves every day for the rest of their lives.

And so we bid adieu, at least for now, to the Abortion Snitch Site! May it limp out of existence, and may its cursed return be met with a deluge of furry porn.