The man who died after authorities say he bombed a Palm Springs fertility clinic on Saturday was linked to antinatalism—the belief that all life is a form of suffering imposed on people without their consent—according to terrorism experts who have been analyzing his online presence.
Authorities say Guy Bartkus, who was 25, set off an explosion in a car outside American Reproductive Centers, injuring five people and killing himself as well as causing extensive damage to the building in an act of terrorism.
“The subject had nihilistic ideations and this was a targeted attack,” Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said in a press conference. Bartkus was attempting to live stream the attack, Davis added. All embryos in the facility were saved.
Since the attack, Bartkus’ digital footprint has surfaced, including writings and recordings of his views. According to the LAist, Bartkus appeared to describe himself as being promortalist and misandrist on a website that surfaced after the bombing and could be heard in an audio recording saying, “Basically I’m anti-life. And IVF is like kind of the epitome of pro-life ideology.” He did not use his name on the site, but analysts from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) believe the website was operated by him. WIRED has viewed an archived version of the website.
Reddit has also banned the antinatalist subreddit r/Efilism, telling NBC News it was removing “any instances of the suspect’s manifesto or recordings and hashing to prevent reupload.” Efilism, a form of antinatalism also linked to promortalism, gets its name by spelling “life” backwards.
Nihilists believe that life is meaningless. While promortalists and antinatalists also don’t value human life, Katherine Keneally, director of threat analysis and prevention US for the ISD, says Bartkus’ views were somewhat distinct from nihilism because of his belief he was on a mission.
“Promortalists recognize and seek to minimize suffering rather than embrace misanthropy and amorality,” Keneally says, noting that the writings attributed to Bartkus indicate he rejected the “sociopath[ic]” tendencies of nihilists” in a May 2025 forum post. Keneally says part of minimizing suffering, in the eyes of an antinatalist, is reducing the human population.
In a recording of the aforementioned website, Bartkus reportedly said, “ I am angry that I exist, um, and that, uh, you know, nobody got my consent to bring me here.”
Keneally says the suspect’s statements and social media posts indicate the bombing was motivated by promortalism, as he may have thought targeting a fertility clinic was preventing new life. ISD analysts don’t believe promortalism has been a primary motivator of violence in previous cases it’s been linked to, she adds.
The bombing comes over a week after ISD released a report about how nihilistic worldviews are fueling violence in the US and Europe. The report found that two prominent nihilistic subcultures, True Crime Community and No Lives Matter, were linked by authorities to nine school shooting plots and two Swedish stabbing attacks in 2024.
True Crime Community adherents fawn over school shooters, but rather than focus on their motivations, the fixation is on their personal characteristics, the report says.
“We’ll see young girls and young women in these communities online that will create memes and images of shooters with hearts around them, adding their last name to theirs,” Keneally says.
Meanwhile, the No Lives Matter camp seeks to replicate violent attacks, often stabbings, to “supercharge the spread of these ideas through memes, images, clips of music or even color schemes,” the report adds. The No Lives Matter movement also intersects with Satanism, and has ties to the 764 network, which is known for luring children into sextortion.
According to the ISD report, the disorganized and ever-changing nature of nihilist ideologies makes it harder to understand and counter.
“Those who carry out nihilistic violence are not seeking to change society or promote a specific ideological outcome,” the report says. “Instead, perpetrators of these attacks are deeply enmeshed in subcultures that share misanthropic and nihilistic worldviews, promote anti-social behavior and encourage violence as an outlet for their emotions and personal struggles.”
The report points to a manifesto left behind by the Madison, Wisconsin school shooter in December, which was called “War Against Humanity,” as an example of nihilistic-fueled violence.
Keneally says people who get wrapped up in these beliefs skew younger; mental illness can also be a predictor. On the website believed to be linked to Bartkus, he said he had borderline personality disorder, a mental health disorder characterized by impulsive behavior and difficulty regulating one’s emotions.
She said in Bartkus’ case, the fact that he posted videos of himself making bombs on YouTube and posted on a pro-suicide forum, suggest that there were warning signs that could have been flagged prior to the bombing.
“There were signals that could have potentially served as a way to disrupt this attack,” she claims.
