The video: A Minneapolis couple is causing a huge uproar by asking internet users for abortion advice. Pete and Alisha Arnold, both 30, are putting their decision to a vote on their website, birthornot.com. (View a video of their ultrasound, below.) Alisha is nearly 17 weeks along, and the polls will be open until December 7th — just before the 20th week of her pregnancy ends, and, with it, "her last chance to get an abortion [in Minnesota]." Married for ten years, the Arnolds insist this isn't a prank or pro-life campaign, but rather an exercise in democracy. Pete calls the vote a chance for both pro-lifers and pro-choicers to be "heard" and to make a "difference in the real world." Commentators, however, aren't so sure.
The reaction: This is either an "idiotic prank" or a "pro-life stunt," say Adrian Chen at Gawker, pointing out that Alisha's Facebook "likes" include Glenn Beck and that Pete once made a pro-Bush comment on CNN. In either case, Tracy Clark-Flory at Salon says, "the choice of whether or not to abort should be left up to a woman and her doctor, not to the entire internet... these people should never, ever raise a kid." There's one thing the pro-choice and pro-life camps can agree on, says Jon Bershad at Mediaite: "This is really creepy and gross." Watch the video:
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