Why Abortion Tweets Cause Death Threats?!

The 27-year-old Angie Jackson from Tampa USA, said nothing is off-limits on Twitter, not even the details of her abortion. Her tweets were meant to help other women. But when her actions caught massive attention, she encountered a stream of fanatic criticisms and a handful of death threats.

On ABC News, Jackson admitted being called a “whore” who “can’t keep her legs closed,” and has also been sent Bible verses by anti-abortion rights activists. See more on Jackson’s Blog called Angie The Anti-Theist.

Whatever you think or feel about Jackson’s actions, she does not seem to be a very bad copywriter, based on the title of her blog?

It all started when Jackson start explaining her experience taking RU-486, better known as the abortion pill, on YouTube and her Twitter page. Jackson had an IUD, a device that is placed into the uterus to prevent pregnancy, but it failed.

Already the mother of a 4-year-old son with special needs, Jackson, with her boyfriend, said that after a difficult and life-threatening first pregnancy her doctors advised her to not get pregnant again.

But her decision to go public with her abortion has brought criticism and death threats, as well as postings on her blog that have labeled her a baby killer.

But Jackson, who said she’s always spoken about controversial topics online -she is a self-professed atheist who says she grew up in a fundamentalist cult and survived sexual abuse – never expected her abortion tweets to earn so much attention.

Jackson stated: “Maybe I was naive. I had not expected that people would think I was making up a medical need for an abortion or other things, like people accusing me of getting pregnant on purpose so I could do this as a publicity stunt,” she said, adding that she was “astonished” at the level of hatred some people have for her.

A few lessons here? Never underestimate the power of social media. Especially not if combined with subjects like abortion or religion. I heard about this news in Jerusalem today: talking about a cosmic collision of religions.

Walking and talking along my tour from the Temple Mount to the Kotel, next to the Via Dolorosa and Al-Aksa Mosque, I again learned that although the Christian, the Islamic and the Jewish Calendars are (almost) equal, some people seem to find it difficult to understand that religion starts with the respect for others (and their beliefs).

I feel a bit awkward. Almost a year ago I was in New York, and heard about an unborn baby kicking its first tweets on Twitter. Now, In Jerusalem, I heard about the ending of “a babies life” on Twitter.

How do you feel about Jackson’s actions? Or about some of the reactions she’s encountered?

More info at ABC News.