Did Michelle Obama say that abortion is OK because "you can just make another baby"? No, that's not true: a liberal satire website made up the quote with the intent of it getting picked up and believed by conservatives and Trump supporters on social media so fans of the site could then mock them for it online. Shortly after publication the hoax was copied by at least one Macedionian fake news website that omitted the satire disclaimer and most of the hints it was not real.
The story originated from an article published by America's Last Line of Defense on September 15, 2018 titled "Michelle Obama: Abortion Is Ok Because 'You Can Just Make Another Baby'" (archived here) which opened:
On Friday, Michelle Obama said perhaps the worst thing she has said since she was ashamed to be an American. At a private event with Planned Parenthood's new president, Obama defended the abortion provider's stance on killing babies.
"A woman deserves to have the right to choose what to do with her own body," Obama said as the audience cheered. "It's not a man's decision. It's certainly not the decision of a bunch of white men in Congress."
"Making a baby is easy. Raising one isn't. Barack and I have done both things twice," she continued. "If you're not ready, you should terminate the pregnancy. You can just make another baby later."
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail so it looked more or less like a real news report:
Michelle Obama: Abortion Is Ok Because 'You Can Just Make Another Baby'
On Friday, Michelle Obama said perhaps the worst thing she has said since she was ashamed to be an American. At a private event with Planned Parenthood's new president, Obama defended the abortion provider's stance
Readers who clicked through could have seen the phrase in the header of the site that read "Information you probably shouldn't trust" and the category the article was placed under, which read "You'll have to wait for the Snopes debunk to tell if it's satire or not". All links in the article went to meme images mocking the intelligence of the reader.
Those links were about the only warnings left in the version of the story posted by Macedonian fake news website Proud Patriot:
Michelle Obama: Abortion Is Ok Because 'You Can Just Make Another Baby' - Proud Patriot
On Friday, Michelle Obama said perhaps the worst thing she has said since she was ashamed to be an American. At a private event with Planned Parenthood's new president, Obama defended the abortion provider's stance on killing babies. "A woman deserves to have the right to choose what to do with her own body," Obama ...
The website proudpatriot.us was registered about a week ago by someone from Macedonia according to WHOIS registration records:
Domain Information
Domain:
proudpatriot.us
Registrar:
NameCheap, Inc.
Registration Date:
2018-09-07
Expiration Date:
2019-09-07
Updated Date:
2018-09-12
Status:
clientTransferProhibited
Name Servers:
rs62a.registrar-servers.com
rs62b.registrar-servers.com
Registrant Contact
Name:
Marko Cvetkovski
Street:
Georgi Vojteh 7
City:
Veles
State:
Veles
Postal Code:
1400
Country:
MK
The site that originally posted the hoax comes with a clear satire disclaimer at the bottom of each article which was missing on the copycat site:
sat·ire ~ˈsaˌtī(ə)r
noun
the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, OR ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
If you disagree with the definition of satire or have decided it is synonymous with "comedy," you should really just move along.
The owner and main writer of the site is self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair, a man from Maine who has made it his full time job to troll gullible conservatives and Trump supporters into liking and sharing his articles. He runs several other websites, including potatriotpost.us, dailyworldupdate.us and nofakenewsonline.us. Sometimes he is also known under his nickname "Busta Troll". A second man working on the sites is John Prager as revealed in this earlier story we wrote.
Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites who often omit the satire disclaimer and any other hints the stories are fake. Blair has tried to get these sites shut down in the past but new ones keep cropping up and he keeps knocking them down.
If you see one of his stories on a site that does not contain a satire disclaimer, assume it is fake news. If you do see the satire disclaimer it is of course also fake news.
We wrote about worstpot.us before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
- Fake News: Kaepernick NOT Arrested for Publicity Stunt During Anthem in San Fran
- Fake News: Nike Did NOT Cancel Kaepernick Contract After Backlash
- Fake News: Colin Kaepernick Did NOT Immediately Lose Nike Endorsement After Anti-White Rant
- Fake News: Henry Winkler Did NOT Die, Did NOT Donate Half Of His Estate To MAGA 2020
