The organization is part of a coalition of pro-abortion rights teams that aims to rally protests in Roe and other pro-abortion precedents that enforce legal abortion across the country.
TikTok’s “permanent” ban on the anti-Catholic and pro-abortion organization Ruth Sent Us didn’t last long.
In recent weeks, the activist organization has made headlines for coordinating outdoor protests in the homes of U. S. Supreme Court justices, gathering protesters to disrupt Catholic Masses on Mother’s Day and threatening to burn the Eucharist.
On May 14, the group’s main account was “permanently banned” from TikTok “due to violations of the terms of service,” according to a post on the social media platform.
But two days later, Ruth Sent Us announced that the ban was lifted.
“GOOD NEWS: Our TikTok @ruthsent, which has been ‘permanently banned’ due to mass reports, has returned due to mass calls!Take that, the haters!” the organization tweeted. TikTok has yet to explain the ban, or its swift cancellation.
Unlike NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Women’s March, and the best-known and best-funded abortion rights groups, Ruth Sent Us has no publicly known leaders, spokespersons, or sponsors. Your budget website, RuthSent. Us, is little more than a homepage with a handful of links.
However, the group’s incendiary rhetoric and provocative and theatrical tactics propelled it to the forefront of the media politics of rage around an imagined overthrow of Roe v. Wade. Wade, the landmark 1973 resolution that legalized abortion in the United States.
And the Catholic Church is one of its goals.
On Feb. 27, months before the May 2 leak of a draft opinion suggesting that Supreme Court justices were about to overthrow Roe, Ruth sent us to take service for disrupting Mass at St. Mary of the Assumption Cathedral in San Francisco. Protesters wore red dressed in hoods through the TV series “The Handmaid’s Tale. “
Similarly dressed protesters interrupted mother’s Day Mass on May 8 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, but Ruth sent us to deal with the incident.
The organization argues that the Supreme Court is “extremist” and deserves to be held accountable “using a variety of tactics. “It demands that pro-abortion Catholics, including President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, engage in additional activism or legislation. to keep abortion legal. In its social networks, the organization denounces Catholicism and “Christian fascism. “Some of its coalition partners also embrace “anti-fascism” and demonstrate in front of churches.
Here is a review of the back of the group.
Who made us Ruth?
“Ruth sent us” is broadcast on social media on TikTok, Twitter and Instagram. The organization encourages protests from politicians, judges and organizations, churches, that oppose legal abortion or Roe v. Wade.
The organization is part of a coalition of pro-abortion rights teams that aims to rally protests in Roe and other pro-abortion precedents that enforce legal abortion across the country.
Its website RuthSent. Us does not include any identifying data about its leaders. Although it includes an email address, the organization does not have a mailing address. Instead, it refers visitors to an action for abortion rights called a “Strike by Choice. “scheduled from May 8 to 15. Ruth Sent Us is one of 12 teams supporting this action.
There is no indication that Ruth sent us is a registered company or a registered non-profit organization or if you have an official tax sponsor.
What else do we know?
A record from the WhoIs website shows that the Ruth Sent Us website was created in November 2020 and has a mailbox founded in Palo Alto, California. The Internet domain name RuthSent. Us is registered in the call of an individual named Sam Spiegel.
Spiegel’s Twitter profile mentions a strategy of mass mobilization for direct democracy “to confuse the media with stories of vigil and protest. “Us’s tweets to his nearly 5,000 followers.
The Vigil for Democracy is recently an LLC with a mailing address in Phoenix, Arizona, but business records show it once had the same California P. O. Box as Ruth Sent Us.
The online registration for the protest ruth sent us uses the same email as Vigil for Democracy.
The website of the costumed protesters incorporated a Google map of “extremist judges” created through the organization Vigil for Democracy to list the streets where several Supreme Court justices lived. Google subsequently removed the card for conceivable violations of the Terms of Service. .
What do we know about Vigil for Democracy?
Snowden Bishop, a radio host and editor of a hashish business magazine based in Scottsdale, Arizona, identifies herself as the director of Vigil for Democracy and the group Just Resisting on her public LinkedIn page. In those roles, she said, “she promotes pro-democracy projects and continues with projects aligned with her non-public project to create a better world, one word at a time. “She has a background in journalism, marketing, content creation, and political strategy/activism.
In a May 10 phone call, Bishop told CNA that vigil for Democracy supports “activism of all kinds,” but that he is not guilty of the Ruth Sent Us organization.
Bishop did not respond in time to a follow-up email. CNA solicited comment from Ruth Sent Us and the email indexed in the Internet domain registry RuthSent. Us, but did not get a reaction in time.
Why “Ruth Us”? Why protesters in disguise?
“Ruth sent us,” a slogan used in the wake of the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a staunch advocate for abortion rights. Periodic studies indicate that the word was first reported at an outdoor protest in September 2020. The home of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, when the Senate proceeded with the confirmation of Judge Amy Comey Barrett.
Women’s marches for abortion rights used this expression in October of the year. A year later, the South Florida Women’s March used “Ruth Sent Us” as the theme of its October 2021 protests.
While disguised protests have been taking positions for years, Ruth Group Sent Us only made its impression on mainstream media in early May 2022. It made headlines for two reasons: It posted a map of the streets where U. S. Supreme Court justices lived. He connected his previous church breakup with calls from other activists to protest abortion rights on Mother’s Day.
The protesters’ costumes are encouraged through a television series based on Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Handmaid’s Tale. “The dystopian pro-feminist novel depicts life under a tyrannical variant of Christianity that forces young women to have young women for older couples. , the sect also outlaws Catholicism and executes Catholic priests.
Why demonstrate for Mother’s Day?
The Ruth organization sent us to a protest possibly from the 8th to the 15th called Strike for Choice. Her social media call for Mother’s Day protests in churches wasn’t the first component of that action, as the corresponding TikTok video was posted on April 27.
In a May 3 tweet, the organization posted the video and sought to link its efforts to a call for a Mother’s Day strike. This separate call to action is the reaction of other abortion rights activists to the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion that appears to be about to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Strike for Choice Calls for Whole Foods and AT Protests
A form of strike registration seeks out participants in a number of ways, adding paid and unpaid protesters.
What do we know about Ruth’s allies?
The Strike for Choice online page lists 12 teams in its coalition. The most productive known of these is Code Pink, an organization of women’s anti-war activists dating back to 2002. It was founded to protest the U. S. invasion of Iraq.
Vigil for Democracy is the fiscal host of a fundraiser for the selection strike at the fundraising site Open Collective. As of May 10, the organization had raised less than $1,400. About fifteen more people had contributed at least $58 each to a “striker. “It’s unclear whether the money for Strike for Choice participants includes Ruth Sent Us protesters.
Reject Fascism and its allocation Rise Up four Abortion Rights are two funders of Strike for Choice.
On its Twitter page, Rise Up four Abortion Rights said it demonstrated outdoors at the former St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City on Mother’s Day because “it’s a symbol of women’s slavery. “to override Roe v. Wade, adding that “only other people can avoid this. “
The protest, which did not disrupt the church but blocked a pro-life march to a local abortion clinic, drew dozens of others to the historic Catholic church.
What did Ruth send us from Catholicism?
A TikTok video of the group’s feb. 27 outage at St. Mary’s Assumption Cathedral in San Francisco gives us an idea.
“For 2000 years, the Catholic Church has been a slave-like establishment of women,” shouted a costumed rioter outside the cathedral. This first disruptive video, titled “Go to the Oppressors,” attracted around 234,000 perspectives on TikTok.
On her social networks, Ruth Sent Us has polemicized Catholicism and has even threatened to burn the Eucharist.
He opposes a Catholic majority on the Supreme Court.
“Seven of the nine justices on our Supreme Court are Catholic. This represents 78% of judges, compared to 23% of the population. WHY?!” the organization said in its Feb. 27 TikTok article.
Neil Gorsuch is said to have been raised Catholic. Sonia Sotomayor is expected to be a vote to keep Roe v. Wade.
What did Ruth tell us about herself?
On Twitter on May 15, the organization invoked anti-segregation sit-ins through the civil rights movement, claiming that “Catholic and evangelical churches and extremist judges are today’s ‘food counters,'” a hashtag asking “What would Martin Luther King do?do”?
He argues that the protests supported through Planned Parenthood and NARAL are “mass gatherings” that are “easy with social media” but ineffective. Ruth sent us argued that “direct action” and deliberately crossing “social red lines” is a more effective path. His comments praise nonviolent action but are also intended to make his enemies uncomfortable.
“To fight the theocracy, we believe we want to bring it before extremist judges and churches,” the organization said.
Pro-life teams see double standards
Some life advocates see a double in the way an organization like Ruth Sent Us is treated through TikTok and other social media platforms.
“The pro-abortion bias of the social media platform must be denied,” Caroline Wharton, editor of the pro-life organization Students for Life of America, told CNA. “It is very clear that pro-abortion teams can exercise their freedom of expression. , even up to and adding the violation of the law, while pro-life teams like Students for Life of America are arrested just for painting a public sidewalk with chalk. “
In August 2020, police arrested a student and student member of Students for Life for writing the pro-life message “Pre-born Black Lives Matter” on the outdoor sidewalk at a Planned Parenthood facility in Washington, D. C.
“There’s a double popularity in those apps, and each and every effort is being made to quell the voices of vulnerable unborn children,” Wharton said.
In January 2020, the pro-life organization LiveAction banned TikTok for allegedly violating “various network guidelines” and then temporarily reinstated it. TikTok said the ban was the result of human error through a moderator.
LiveAction was permanently banned from Pinterest in 2019 for alleged misinformation related to vaccines and “medically erroneous data and conspiracies that make Americans and conveniences targets of harassment and violence. “
He rejected the allegations.
Prior to the LiveAction ban, former Pinterest worker Eric Cochran, a reputable whistleblower, said the social media company classified as a conspiracy theory reports by investigative journalist and activist David Daleiden, who explored the links between abortion service providers and imaginable illegal sales of fetuses. of abortions.
TikTok’s terms of service prohibit any “defamatory,” “hateful,” or “provocative” content. Its terms prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion, among other features. a thief crime,” as well as “any intentionally designed to galvanize or disappoint people, in specific trolling and intimidation, or intended to harass, harm, hurt, frighten, afflict, embarrass, or disappoint people.
CNA reached out to TikTok for comment, but got a reaction in time.
CNA editor Katie Yoder contributed to this story.
Files leaked by a former Facebook executive show the social media giant’s take on the emotional well-being of some of its most fragile users.
Professor Larry Sullivan said he deeply regretted the pain and hardship it caused the woman.
In his speech on the occasion of the 102nd anniversary of the birth of St. John Paul II, the pontifical biographer drew key lessons, as it relates to the Holy See’s diplomatic relations with authoritarian regimes.
The agreement will be funded through the archdiocese, its parishes, Catholic entities and the archdiocese’s insurance companies.
Overwhelmed by the sexual revolution?This convention is for you!
Who was Gerard Manley Hopkins and why do we read him?
Overwhelmed by the sexual revolution?This convention is for you!
Who was Gerard Manley Hopkins and why do we read him?
The Best of Catholic Blogs
“The musical culture of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, even greater than that of any art. ” —Sacrosanctum Concilium
SubscribeGet your Sign-up subscription today.
Sign up for 6 free paid issues Try us with a free trial subscription.
Offer a gift subscriptionAssociate your friends, family circle, or clergy with a gift from the registry.
Sign up for the e-newsletterGet registration updates sent or weekly to your inbox.