A ‘pro-mortalist' burned down an IVF clinic – there are fears the movement is on the rise

Telegraph

21-05-2025

As a child, Guy Edward Bartkus enjoyed playing with smoke bombs and model rockets, and once managed to burn down his family home with a box of matches.
On Saturday, authorities believe the 25-year-old blew himself up with a car bomb in Palm Springs, California, outside a fertility clinic.
Following the blast, which killed Bartkus and injured four other people, investigators unearthed writing online and what appears to be an audio manifesto justifying the attack, in which he describes himself as a 'pro-mortalist'.
He appeared to subscribe to an ideology that humans should cease to exist to prevent future suffering, and that having children is fundamentally immoral because they could not consent to being born.
Richard Bartkus, 75, the father of the suspect, has said that he believed the voice on the recording belonged to his son and suggested he had been 'brainwashed' from spending time online.
Pro-mortalism is a 'twisted belief system that is anti-life', said Brian Levin, founder of the Centre for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
It primarily promotes suicide rather than terrorist attacks among its adherents, Mr Levin said, adding the 'philosophy itself is dangerous because it promotes the devaluation of life'.
He said it was one of a number of fringe movements on dark corners of the internet that is infecting young men.
Bartkus appeared to have posted a 30-minute recording online shortly before the attack, which begins with the words: 'I figured I would just make a recording explaining 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's, you know, nobody got my consent to bring me here,' he continued, and compared the act of being born to raping an unconscious woman.
He compared life to 'slavery to a DNA molecule' and declared himself sickened by 'so much wasted suffering' in the world.
'When you see innocent creatures getting completely f—d by life, you know, I'm not just talking humans, but even animals, right? How the hell can you sit there and call that an intelligent design?' said the 25-year-old, who was a vegan and seemingly used the username 'IndictEvolution' online.
'Parents were the real killers by creating life'
Openly admitting he would cause 'death' and 'destruction' by bombing the fertility clinic, he declared in vitro fertilisation (IVF) was 'the epitome of pro-life ideology' and said: 'F— IVF, f— IVF clinics, and f— the people that work for them.'
'I'm only doing this because I feel like it's what I have to do to get people's f—ing attention and to let the world know, like, yes, I'm f—ing serious about this s—,' he continued.
Parents were 'the real killers' by creating life in the first place, he said, arguing: 'All the pro-mortalist is saying is like, hey, let's make it, let's make the death thing happen sooner rather than later in life, right? We're just changing the date at which it happened.'
The FBI said the explosion, which took place about 11am on Saturday morning, was the largest bombing ever in southern California.
Although the bombing heavily damaged the clinic, authorities managed to rescue the medical records and embryos of patients who were trying to conceive.
The online cult is an off-shoot of anti-natalism — the belief that it is always immoral to have children, Prof Levin said.
'There's a glorification of the dark side of the world and this blends into a nihilistic viewpoint,' he said, explaining that the group exists 'on the dark side of the dark web'.
Anti-natalists on online forums sought to distance themselves from pro-mortalism in the wake of the attack.
'We empathise with suffering, we don't seek to cause suffering. If you have pro-mortalist thoughts and beliefs, then kindly direct yourself out of this sub,' one account wrote on Reddit.
Prof Levin said the attack showed how the internet had allowed a range of extremist ideologies to proliferate.
'We look at multiple examples of young males, 17 to 25 ,who lash out against what they see as a degrading world. Sometimes it's done to stand for racial supremacy or nationalism,' he said.
'In this case though, he [Bartkus] boiled it down to the most central crux of his existence, which is that he had an unhappy and despaired life.
'It's a philosophy that says suicide is actually purposeful and accomplishing something beneficial for the world.'
Bartkus is said to have posted videos of homemade explosive devices on multiple social media accounts, a law enforcement source told ABC News.
An archived account shows videos dating back six years of what appeared to be tests of homemade explosive devices. YouTube has since deleted the channels because they are 'associated with the suspect'.
Richard Bartkus told The New York Times he had not spoken with his son in 10 years, and recalled him as enjoying tinkering with small model rockets and 'stink bombs' and 'smoke bombs'.
In September 2009, aged nine, he said he son was placed on juvenile probation after lighting the family home on fire while playing with matches