May 19, 2025

"[Guy Edward] Bartkus was said to have identified with 'pro-mortalism,' a philosophy that claims death is preferable to being born in the first place."

"His extremist beliefs, which he recorded in manifestos, included being against bringing babies into the world without their consent to spare them from future suffering. The suspect attempted to live-stream the explosion, although authorities said the video failed to upload.... Bilal Essayli, the US attorney for Los Angeles, wrote on social media that Bartkus appeared to be 'anti pro-life.'"

From "Terrorist bombed fertility clinic ‘to spare babies suffering’/Guy Edward Bartkus was the only fatality in the explosion at a facility in Palm Springs, California" (London Times).

I don't think there is an organized "anti pro-life" movement (to be distinguished from the pro-choice opponents of the pro-life movement). Here's the L.A. Times article about Bartkus's manifesto:
The site extolled a hodgepodge of philosophies, such as “abolitionist veganism,” the opposition to all animal use by humans, and “negative utilitarianism,” the idea that one should act to minimize suffering rather than maximize pleasure in the world.

“Basically, I’m a pro-mortalist,” the author wrote, referring to a fringe philosophical position that it is best for sentient beings to die as soon as possible to prevent future suffering.... 
In the manifesto, the author denounced those who bring human life into the world and declared an end goal of “sterilizing this planet of the disease of life.” “Life can only continue as long as people hold the delusional belief that it is not a zero sum game causing senseless torture, and messes it can never, or only partially, clean up,” the site said.

Accompanying the website was a 30-minute audio file, labeled “pre,” that began with the speaker saying he would explain “why I’ve decided to bomb an IVF building or clinic.” “Basically, it just comes down to I’m angry that I exist and that, you know, nobody got my consent to bring me here,” the speaker said....

On the website with the manifesto and hidden in the site’s underlying code, the author referenced the recent death of a person the writer claimed as a close friend, “Sophie.” The references match the April 20 death of a Washington woman allegedly shot by her partner at — he says — her request....

“I’ve never related to someone so much, and can’t imagine I ever would again,” the author said in the manifesto, noting that he and “Sophie” identified as “anti-sex misandrists” and “VegAntinatalists” and had a “borderline personality ‘disorder.’ ”...

Brian Levin, the founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and professor emeritus at Cal State San Bernardino, said.... “The antinatalism movement he links to specifically condemns violence,” Levin said. “Still, his purported rambling, idiosyncratic ‘political’ statements paint a far different picture — that of a hopeless unstable young man whose suicidal despair stirs him into a self-consuming brutal death justified by a personally distorted embrace of an obscure anti-life ideology.”...

46 comments:

Jamie said...

He sounds as if he was literally possessed by a demon. What a horrible life.

Quayle said...

Well, under Latter-day Saint theology, he definitely did agree to be born. He had his agency, and he chose to come to earth. And as for suffering in life: joy isn't possible without suffering. Or as one LDS leader said in an address at BYU a few weeks ago: "We tend to think of joy as the absence of sorrow. But what if joy is not the absence of sorrow? What if joy and sorrow can coexist? What if they have to coexist?"

TheDopeFromHope said...

"I don't think there is an organized 'anti pro-life' movement (to be distinguished from the pro-choice opponents of the pro-life movement)." They're one and the same.

stunned said...

Joy and sorrow can coexist but not if you have a dichotomic, all-or-nothing cognition with no middle ground. It's common among people on the autism spectrum. This guy was a psychopath.

ron winkleheimer said...

I can't remember who it was, but I recall reading about at least one Ivy League professor/philosopher that believes that bringing children into the world is unethical because they are going to suffer and die. The contention was that never being is better than being. And there are plenty of people who believe that the world is over populated and that the population needs to be reduced, by some means.

I'm looking at you Bill Gates and others.

narciso said...

Walker percy would call it the Thanatos syndrome

RMc said...

The real question is: How can this be blamed on Trump?

robother said...

One could ask, how would we get consent from a non-existent person to be conceived, but as my father said, "never engage with a nutcase."

narciso said...

one might say the progenitor of such thought was malthus, but ehrliich put into overdrive, of course there were soviet scientists who put these notions out there

Martin said...

"RMc said...
The real question is: How can this be blamed on Trump?"

The real answer is it can't and so we will never hear about it again. This makes lefty press morons sad.
Of course the perpetrator is dead and isn't really a part of anything larger than himself so not much to say about it anyway.

narciso said...

in the east west convergence, this deep earth sentiment, was sort of parodied by samuel jacksons valentine in kingsman,

narciso said...

possibly, earth first and the unabomber were parallel tracks,

narciso said...

a more sober take on it, was in Dan Brown's Inferno, where a likeminded scientist creates a sterilizing plague,

Howard said...

God willing, we will prevail in peace and freedom from fear and in true health through the purity and essence of our natural fluids. God bless you all." Then he hung up. We're still trying to figure out the meaning of that last phrase, sir.

Muffley:

There's nothing to figure out General Turgidson. This man is obviously a psychotic.

Turgidson:

Well, I'd like to hold off judgment on a thing like that, sir, until all the facts are in.

john mosby said...

Quayle: "What if joy and sorrow can coexist? What if they have to coexist?"

In theological circles, this is known as Beverlism:

https://youtu.be/KNuKMPeOdfM?si=vxctc5uDc0FFENbr

JSM

Original Mike said...

"being against bringing babies into the world without their consent" (emphasis added)

So, nut job. Got it.

Aggie said...

Glad he at least had the decency to do it on a weekend when there were not many around. And glad the news feed hasn't been squelched. Anyone else notice the difference?

narciso said...

General Ripper is clearly an allusion to Curtis Lemay, who held strategic air command for a generation, of course the Soviet counterparts, perhaps General Ustinov is not fleshed out,

Rusty said...

(sigh) If only he had used all the anger to build an abortion clinic.

n.n said...

Her choice. His regret. I'm asking why!?

n.n said...

He considered life to be a "burden". He subscribed to the Pro-Choice religion.

loudogblog said...

In the old days, this would have been classified as mental illness.

RCOCEAN II said...

If he was a pro-life bomber who died trying to destroy an abortion clinic, the MSM would full of stories trying to prove the would-be killer had links to the pro-life movement and the pro-lifers were to blame.

But because he's a leftist, then the MSM goes into "he's just a lone nut" mode. And makes sure that everyone knows that there absolutely no link to the Left, and they're aren't to blame.
The amount of violence committed by the liberal/left is astounding and the MSM gaslighting us to think the Right are the violent ones is absurd.

RCOCEAN II said...

The FBI under Wray tried to hide the Tennessee Transgender killer's manifesto. The new management have allowed it to come out. The killer wanted to murder white Christian kids. As many as possible because she/he/it was Leftist. MSM? Radio silence.

n.n said...

Today it is considered transformative therapy.

Temujin said...

Given the replacement rates of virtually every industrialized nation on earth is below the necessary levels to keep their societies functioning, I'd say the anti-life people are winning. They just need to show a little more patience.

Those celebrating celibacy, abortion, not having children in order to 'save the planet'? They are winning. Those preaching that women should shun having a family to instead spend 50 hours a week working in a corporate environment for...something that is rarely fulfilling? They're winning.

Everyone else is losing.

Narr said...

As some ancient Greek is supposed to have concluded, the best thing is not to be born at all, so this ideology isn't new.

The Mormons seem to agree with Schopenhauer (or he with them). That's very interesting.

stunned said...

"His father. Richard Bartkus, 75, told the New York Times that his son built toy rockets as a child and once burned his family's house down in Yucca Valley while playing with matches."

Steve Austin Showed Up For Work. said...

Leave us out of it, please.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

He's a member of the child-destroying death cult called the Democrat Party.

Danno said...

Original Mike said..."being against bringing babies into the world without their consent" (emphasis added)

So, nut job. Got it.

I'd like to see this consent requirement applied to abortion. Boy would that be a mind-f*ck for the por-choicers.

MadTownGuy said...

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

"The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT[A]) is an environmental movement that calls for all people to abstain from reproduction in order to cause the gradual voluntary extinction of humankind. VHEMT supports human extinction primarily because it would prevent environmental degradation. The group states that a decrease in the human population would prevent a significant amount of human-caused suffering. The extinctions of non-human species and the scarcity of resources caused by humans are frequently cited by the group as evidence of the harm caused by human overpopulation."

I doubt that they are for extinction. They just want to clear the way for a few elites to use the earth as their own personal nature compound.

YoungHegelian said...

St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica, says that even though the damned in Hell may suffer for eternity that God shows them His mercy by still permitting them to exist at all.

Throughout most of Western philosophy existence is seen as the most fundamental of all goods because it permits all the other predicates, both the good and the bad, to exist in a subject. Well, apparently not for these anti-natalist guys!

MayBee said...

We are staying about a mile away, and it was incredibly loud. It shook our building. I thought it was a sonic boom until we heard the sirens

Oddly, this is the second bombing I’ve heard. The first was the anti abortion activist in Olympic Park in Atlanta. So weird to be near two bombings, related to but on opposite sides of natalism

Larry J said...

robother said...
One could ask, how would we get consent from a non-existent person to be conceived, but as my father said, "never engage with a nutcase."

A concise post that both posts the essential element of a fallacy and the best solution for dealing with those who believe it. Well done.

Rusty said...

Maybee.
Are you related to Tyrone Slothrop?

n.n said...

Abortive ideation is a modern psychosis.

n.n said...

Pro-Choice and like-minded religions are conceived under the transhumane umbrella philosophy.

Hassayamper said...

Those celebrating celibacy, abortion, not having children in order to 'save the planet'? They are winning. Those preaching that women should shun having a family to instead spend 50 hours a week working in a corporate environment for...something that is rarely fulfilling? They're winning.

They're not winning. They are losing, slowly to be sure, but steadily and ineluctably, they are losing.

The Left's devotion to buggery, abortion, girl-boss careerism, anti-natalist environmentalist panic, drug-fueled nihilism, and confiscatory taxes in the jurisdictions they control means that they are dooming themselves to demographic oblivion. But these tendencies are not spread uniformly in the population, and therefore it is a statistical mistake to assume that they will continue until humanity itself disappears from the earth.

Religious and cultural subgroups that do not subscribe to these tenets will go on having children in sustainable numbers. Eventually the population will reach a state of equilibrium, and then the decline will be reversed as the left-wing subculture will be completely swamped by the reproductive success of the Amish, the Mormons, the conservative Catholics and Evangelicals, the Orthodox Jews, and all the rest of those who do not subscribe to their foolish nihilism.

As the Left continues to dwindle and lose political power, their evil, corrosive influence on our government will disappear, to be replaced by a hard-Right nationalist supermajority that will never again surrender the heights of cultural supremacy to the left-wing enemies of humanity. I don't think I will live long enough to see America turn into Spain in the Franco years, but I hope and expect that my children will.

This prospect scares the shit out of the leftist scum, of course, which was the one and only reason they have opened our doors to all the flotsam and jetsam of the Third World. Thank God Trump came along to reverse the tide and close the borders.

The next step must be vigorous, exemplary criminal and civil punishment for the likes of George Soros and all his tentacles. The Biden administration put a third of the FBI to work rounding up the grannies who wandered into the capitol on Jan. 6th, and now I say we should put two-thirds of them on the task of rooting out and severely punishing every NGO, government worker, and Democrat politician who took part in the Great Replacement conspiracy. Let's have mass trials for them in Oklahoma and Wyoming and other parts of the country far from the Beltway sewer, with Trump-appointed hanging judges who will put them away for decades and confiscate all the tainted money they hoped to use to invade and conquer us.

No mercy. No pity. No quarter. Total and complete destruction of the Left is the only outcome we can accept. Trump must use every lever of government power towards this goal if America is to survive as an independent, free, and prosperous nation.

Aggie said...

@Temujin "...Those celebrating celibacy, abortion, not having children in order to 'save the planet'? They are winning."

I disagree. My experience in an area of the country that is one of the fastest-growing, is that young families are back in vogue and quite happy popping out kids. My kids are good examples, and when visiting we attend their church where there is a plethora of more examples. 2, 3, 4 kids, white, black, hispanic too. All pretty laid back, all gainfully employed, all interacting in a completely relaxed way in and out of church. Don't place too much stock in the news-feed, it ain't news, and it ain't good food either.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

Pro-lifers are generally concerned with ivf clinics because it is likely that many frozen embryos are regarded as entirely disposable. Pro-choicers might be concerned if the embryos are not regarded as disposable. This guy thought: if it's better not to be born, it's better to stop embryos from developing whenever possible--especially at a kind of embryo farm?

Achilles said...

MayBee said...
We are staying about a mile away, and it was incredibly loud. It shook our building. I thought it was a sonic boom until we heard the sirens

Oddly, this is the second bombing I’ve heard. The first was the anti abortion activist in Olympic Park in Atlanta. So weird to be near two bombings, related to but on opposite sides of natalism


Has anyone said how large the bomb was?

If you are around enough of these explosions the fourth of July kinda loses it's luster. Looks like it collapsed a wall so maybe 50-100 pounds?

Narr said...

Good catch, Rusty.

Rusty said...

Narr, I have a eidetic memory for absolutely worthless shit.

Marc in Eugene said...

These are not subjects I usually trouble myself with but the Ben Sixsmith essay (The Rise of the Philosophical Terrorists) was in the inbox this morning, and I even struggled through much of the Katherine Dee article he linked to. I don't know how many of these nihilist fanatics there are but I don't doubt there will be more incidents.

Lazarus said...

Groups that "explicitly reject violence" often have followers who embrace it. It's a consequence of believing something passionately (and being unbalanced). Fanatics also have imaginative ways of deciding what is and what isn't violence.

Hillary Clinton denounced Vance and Musk this month for saying that Americans should have more children. She's indignant that Vance is also for sending away the illegals, who are the ones having the children. Maybe the key here is the idea that "it takes a village to raise a child." Hillary thinks that she and her sisters will be running things, and in that sense, "raising" the children without actually bearing them.

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