Now with advanced mobile technology!

So, we are all familiar with anti-abortion protesters. They wave their signs up and down in front of abortion clinics and scream Bible verses at you, and you laugh and point out that if it was their teenage daughter who wound up pregnant, they'd probably change their tune. A good time is had by all!

But Rewire has a report on an exciting new trend in anti-abortion activism, something to make protesting fun again! You see, it's a technology-type thing, where they can use something called "geo-fencing" to send you sexts on your phone while you're in the waiting room at the Planned Parenthood, begging you not to 'bort your baby:

Last year, an enterprising advertising executive based in Boston, Massachusetts, had an idea: Instead of using his sophisticated mobile surveillance techniques to figure out which consumers might be interested in buying shoes, cars, or any of the other products typically advertised online, what if he used the same technology to figure out which women were potentially contemplating abortion, and send them ads on behalf of anti-choice organizations? [...]

[John Flynn, CEO of Copley Advertising] sends advertisements for his clients to women’s smartphones while they are sitting in Planned Parenthood clinics, using a technology known as “mobile geo-fencing.”

Oh, that sounds fun! You're just sitting there in the waiting room, and you get a little targeted ad about how you're a whore baby-killer, and CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE!

Over at Salon, Amanda Marcotte explains that geofencing is the same technology that allows companies to "put up a virtual 'fence' around a location," and when your Obamaphone crosses that fence, they can send you ads. Big sale at the Big Lots! Carry that fetus to full term and hock it to your friendly neighborhood crisis pregnancy center! You know, those folks who masquerade as abortion clinics, but really are just wingnut facilities with no medical professionals, which exist to lie to pregnant women and girls? Yeah, THOSE guys!

To their slight credit, not every anti-choice loon thinks stalking abortion-havers (and clinic workers! and doctors!) on their phones is a good idea:

One recipient [of Flynn's pitch] contacted Rewire after speaking with Flynn, and expressed horror at what Flynn told her he was able to do on behalf of anti-choice clients.

“I felt disgust, and I felt protective of these women who are going to seek sensitive medical services at a time when they’re vulnerable,” said the recipient, who is a social worker at a Northern California adoption agency. Rewire agreed to withhold her identity due to her fears of retaliation from anti-choice activists.

“They’re being spied on by this capitalist vulture who is literally trying to sell their fetuses,” she said. “To do this to women without consent is predatory and it’s an invasion of her privacy, and unethical.”

Yes, kind of!

Now, don't worry, the anti-choicers who are using these technologies -- a large network of crisis pregnancy centers, and also Bethany Christian Services, a Christian adoption agency -- aren't trying to get ladies' names and addresses or anything. Yet.

But maybe they will someday! Sasha Bruce of NARAL Pro-Choice America is worried:

Bruce said she was alarmed in particular because Flynn was not just collecting information about what women looked at online, but also about their physical locations.

“If you have the smartphone ID, and then you can tie that to a location outside of the clinic, let’s say a home, that’s a real security threat,” Bruce told Rewire. “I worry about the extension of that—the desire of anti-choice activists to know who these staffers are, and who the women are.”

What a new, exciting kind of doxxing! Maybe they will finally catch the person Carly Fiorina saw in those videos, selling live baby parts on the side of the highway out of the back of a truck!

Or maybe they will do something worse. Be very afraid of these people, very, very afraid.

[Rewire / Salon]