It was a story that captured the hearts of thousands of people across the United States.
A woman was writing a blog about giving birth to a baby who had been diagnosed as terminally ill in the womb.
Her website had nearly a million hits by last Sunday when she claimed to have given birth only to lose the baby hours later.
But it all turned out to be a hoax.
This is bad enough but then it also emerges that the blogger was using her platform of lies to campaign against abortion.
Beccah Beushausen, 26, a social worker from Mokena, Illinois, has been unmasked as the woman behind the blog.
She told the Chicago Tribune that she really did lose a son shortly after birth in 2005, and had started her blog to help deal with that loss and to express her strong anti-abortion views.
The blog, which included biblical quotes, anti-abortion messages and a soundtrack of inspirational Christian pop songs, attracted thousands of abortion opponents.
Advertisers were also lining up, and presumably would have paid out if Beushausen had not been found out.
She was finally caught when she posted pictures of her "baby" on her blog. The "baby" was a lifelike doll which was spotted by a dollmaker who has the same model.
Now people who were taken in by the story -- many of them who had lost babies themselves -- are furious.
Beushausen told the Chicago Tribune she had expected only a handful of friends to read her blog but as she got more readers it became addictive.
"I know what I did was wrong," she said. "I've been getting hate mail. I'm sorry because people were so emotionally involved."
If she has any sense of right and wrong she will feel massively guilty for having upset many bereaved parents who became emotionally involved with her story.
What do you think about what Beushausen did? Do you think there is any excuse for her actions?
Source [Chicago Tribune]