Buffer Zones are in, but the UK pro-abortion movement cannot rest
Undercover in an anti-abortion group, I discovered the ideology and influence behind the now-banned clinic protests
It’s just over five years to the day since I arrived at a bland conference hall in Holborn, central London, to take part in the Clarkson Academy – a two-day training course run by the extreme anti-abortion group Centre for Bio-Ethical Research UK (CBR UK).
The training aimed to “level up” the fight against abortion, with sessions that focused on how to run anti-abortion protests, including outside clinics. These included one called “social reform and graphic images” – which focused on the need to use distressing abortion imagery during protests in order to influence change – and another titled “#StopStella and cultural engagement”, which referred to the pro-choice Labour MP Stella Creasy.
There was also a “display briefing”, after which the attendees headed to a protest to put into practice what they had just learned. I did not attend this session or the protest, which took place on the second day of the academy. I was there undercover on day one to report for openDemocracy and saw firsthand how the group believes abortion is linked to Satanism.
Former lobbyist Wilfred Wong told the audience that abortions are “ritual child sacrifices”, before claiming Satanists conduct ritual abortions in (unnamed) “high-profile” facilities in the US, where women sway while chanting “our bodies, ourselves”.
One moment that stuck with me was how CBR UK’s founder Andy Stephenson boasted that Britain would end abortion within five years – predicting we would ban abortion before the US. That seems unlikely, I thought.
Well, it’s been five years and far from ending abortion, their tactics of protesting outside clinics have come to an end instead, with the long-delayed implementation of buffer zones. Parliament voted to designate safe spaces around abortion clinics, so patients and workers are free from harassment, back in October 2022. However, then home secretary Suella Braverman – who has a history of anti-abortion voting – failed to implement the law.
Louise McCudden, UK head of external affairs at MSI Reproductive Choices, welcomed the news that the buffer zones will finally come into effect. “After years of fighting for national Safe Access Zones, we are delighted that the government has brought them into force,” she told openDemocracy. “People seeking an abortion in England and Wales will now be able to access care without harassment and intimidation on the clinic doorsteps.”
The move has proven controversial. Anti-abortion groups and their allies in the Conservative Party and some parts of the UK press have accused the government of banning “silent prayer”, along with claims that buffer zones strangle freedom of speech. The reality is that people can continue to campaign against abortion almost anywhere. They just can’t do it outside clinics where women are accessing safe and legal healthcare.
But what is the history of anti-abortion protests outside clinics? Who are the groups behind this activity – and the organisations powering them? These protests tell an interesting story about the ideology and global reach of a movement determined to deny women their human rights. And, in the UK, it’s a movement that starts with the far right.
Related story: ID 46523
Anti-abortion meets Islamophobia
Our story starts with the UK Life League. The group was founded in 1999 following concerns that the ‘pro-life’ movement was failing to cut through with the public and more radical action was required.
Life League stated that “debate and argument will not achieve the necessary results … what people really need is to be confronted with the grim and gruesome reality of abortion.” The group achieved this by protesting outside hospitals with posters and postcards featuring graphic abortion imagery, a tactic picked up by CBR UK.
The tactic was a turning point for the movement. But what makes the Life League more interesting is who founded it: Jim Dowson. The former British National Party fundraiser is the founder of the anti-Islam group Britain First and was more recently found making videos for the far-right Knights Templar International, which aims to defend Christianity from “barbaric hordes of Cultural Marxists, homosexuals and Muslims”, among other groups.
Dowson and his Life League help us to understand how the modern anti-abortion movement is linked to far-right politics and conspiracy. The group viewed abortion as part of a conspiracy to replace white people with migrant people, otherwise known as the Great Replacement.
In its supporter magazine Rescue, Life League warned of Muslim people who “speak of conquering Europe through the wombs of our women”, and panicked that abortion and immigration meant “the empty cradles, playgrounds, school chairs where our own children should be are occupied by aliens.” The language is straight from the fascist playbook – reminiscent of Italy’s fascist dictator Mussolini.
More recently, via the Knights Templar, Dowson has raged against abortion as “Satanic”, echoing CBR UK. One particularly disturbing Knights Templar video compares a British seaside scene in the 1970s with one from today, and described the increase in black and Asian people enjoying a stroll along the beach as “the result of fifty years of contraception, propaganda … and literally millions of abortions.”
Such views remain fringe in the UK. The most recent social attitudes survey shows that support for abortion is higher than ever. However, in the US, anti-abortion groups have been gaining political influence and power – and their war on buffer zones has had significant influence over anti-abortion activity in the UK.
The US connections
40 Days for Life began protesting outside abortion clinics in the US in 2007 and has since grown its reach to 63 countries. Its latest biannual vigils, which kicked off on 25 September and will close on 3 November, included protests in a dozen UK cities.
The group’s international coordinator, Robert Colquhoun, was, until June this year, on the board of CBR UK, which itself is the branch of the US’ Center for Bio-Ethical Reform. This autumn alone, 40 Days for Life’s protests targeted clinics run by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) and MSI Reproductive Choices across numerous locations in the UK.
During my brief time at the Clarkson Academy, I got a small glimpse into their tactics. Protesters have plastic foetus models that they wave at women, as well as posters of graphic abortion imagery. They try to persuade women not to have abortions, using disinformation, and, of course, they pray. CBR UK claims it is meeting women with hope and love, but the reality is its protesters intimidate and alarm patients and staff.
The tactics of the UK branches of 40 Days and CBR are learnt from the US – and in particular from the legal charity Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which provided funding and legal representation in the 2014 McCullen v Coakley cases that ruled buffer zones as unconstitutional.
The ADF, which is funded in part by anonymous donors and Christian nationalist billionaires such as the DeVos Foundation, hoped to bring its cash and lessons from the US to the UK.
Its local branch, ADF International UK, has campaigned against buffer zones and represented individuals arrested for so-called “silent prayer” outside abortion clinics. The charity receives annual grants from its US parent organisation and has more than doubled its UK expenditure from £370,000 in 2018 to £770,000 today.
Sian Norris
But despite its best efforts, ADF has been unable to replicate its US success. And now, neither its clients nor 40 Days, CBR or any other protesting groups will be able to protest at abortion clinics. As McCudden said, women needing abortion care can now access clinics without harassment, and healthcare workers can go to work free from intimidation.
This is a big win, not least because of the unnecessary delays from the previous government. But while we can celebrate this change, the pro-abortion movement must remain aware of the growing far-right and US-influenced threat to women’s rights.
New anti-abortion groups such as Abortion Resistance are forming with new messaging and a vibrant, Gen-Z aesthetic. The overruling of Roe vs Wade in the US has emboldened a global movement that is seeking to increase its influence in the UK. And a rising far right is adopting abortion as an issue in its campaigning, another tactic learnt from the US.
That movement may yet be further emboldened by a Trump win in next week’s US elections. Should that happen, we must be ready to defend and expand abortion rights – here, and across the world.
Helpline 3
Comments ()