A recent Guardian article revealed that a menstration- tracking app called Femm downloaded by over 400,000 users across the world is funded by major anti-abortion donor Sean Fieler.
The app, which also features reproductive health advice from unlicensed "medical experts", encourages users to avoid hormonal birth control in favor of "natural" birth control methods.
Fieler is a General Partner at Equinox Management Partners LP, a hedge fund based in Princeton, NJ. He also sits on the boards of a number of conservative think tanks and anti-abortion organizations, most notably the Manhattan Institute and the Susan B. Anthony List.
According to a ReWire investigation, Fieler has given over $18M between 2010-14 to anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, and pro-theocracy candidates. Notably, he's made donations totaling over $500K to Susan B. Anthony affiliated Women Speak Out PAC, and over $1.5M to Campaign for American Principles. Other notable funders to these two PACs include the Mercer family.
As state anti-abortion bills continue to grow in number across the country, it's critical to keep an eye on mega-donors like Feiler who are finding new ways to push their ideological agendas. Femm App is a particularly disturbing example of how the anti-abortion movement is developing technology that not only collects data about users fertility cycles, but pushes an anti-contraceptive agenda under the guise of reproductive health.