Anti-abortion group active in Scotland withholds size of US funding

Apr 3, 2025
By James Walker

AN anti-abortion group active in Scotland has withheld details about the amount of US funding it receives.

The National previously revealed that ADF International – one of several groups which has actively looked to challenge Scotland’s abortion buffer zones legislation – received £1,119,975 in 2024 from its US parent entity Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), according to Companies House.

This represented a 281% increase in just two years, as it received £398,000 in 2022. Now, in newly published accounts, the organisation reveals that it has received £1,409,342 in total in 2025 – a hefty increase of over £150k.

Continued: https://archive.is/MAKTm
(https://www.thenational.scot/news/25992604.anti-abortion-group-active-scotland-withholds-size-us-funding/)

03.04.2026

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ADF International

Alliance Defending Freedom

buffer zone law

Gillian Mackay

safe access zones

Southern Poverty Law Center

Europe

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Anti-choice

UK – Police ‘can’t decide’ if anti-abortion campaigner should be charged for silent prayer

Catholic charity worker says someone’s thoughts ‘cannot possibly be a crime’ and her ‘punishment has clearly been the process’

Martin Evans
30 November 2025

Police and prosecutors are “frozen with indecision” over whether to charge a woman for silently praying near an abortion clinic, campaigners have claimed.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a Catholic charity worker, is being investigated by West Midlands Police for allegedly breaching a new buffer-zone law intended to prevent people protesting near abortion centres.

Continued: https://archive.is/7NIzF
(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/30/police-no-decide-anti-abortion-campaigner-charged/)

30.11.2025

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ADF International

anti-choice protesters

buffer zones

Independent Office for Police Conduct

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce

Inside the right-wing push against abortion rights in Scotland

Nov 30, 2025
By James Walker

A RECENT review of Scotland's abortion laws led to widespread right-wing outrage last week. One clip that went particularly viral was a GB News segment featuring Lois McLatchie Miller, who works for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

“The Scottish Government have commissioned a report to suggest that they allow abortion all the way up to birth for most social reasons,” she told the broadcaster’s presenters.

Continued: https://archive.is/lcmwa
(https://www.thenational.scot/news/25659692.inside-right-wing-push-abortion-rights-scotland/)

US anti‑abortion cash floods UK free speech frontlines

Democracy for Sale investigation finds US anti‑abortion lawyer funding Toby Young’s Free Speech Union, while Alliance Defending Freedom’s UK spending soars.

May 31, 2025
By Peter Geoghegan and Max Colbert

Nigel Farage has often described himself as ‘pro-choice’ - but this week the Reform leader declared that plans to decriminalise abortion up to 24 weeks are “utterly ludicrous”.

Farage’s comments were striking. Not least as the abortion proposals have been backed by a cross-party group of MPs. But the Reform leader is not the only figure on the political right who seems to have a growing interest in Britain’s abortion laws.

Continued: https://democracyforsale.substack.com/p/us-antiabortion-cash-floods-uk-free-speech-union-adf

This U.S.-based ‘hate group’ is using a shadowy network of lawyers and doctors to infiltrate Canada

The Alliance Defending Freedom has deep and surprising connections in Ottawa

By Kevin Maimann
August 9, 2023

A right-wing Christian organization behind successful efforts to roll back LGBTQ2S+ and abortion rights in the U.S. has been working in Canada for years. And while it has racked up some “successes” in this country, it’s near impossible to tell what the group is up to because of Canada’s lax finance laws, leading to calls for greater transparency.

The non-profit Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has been a central player in efforts to limit the rights of women, queer and trans people in the U.S. since the 1990s. The organization has been so pervasive and effective in its campaigns to malign LGBTQ2S+ people that it was classified as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The ADF has intervened in numerous high-profile court cases including the recent Supreme Court case 303 Creative, which limited the purview of anti-discrimination legislation, and Dobbs earlier this year, which overturned the right to abortion in the U.S. The ADF is on a roll, with no sign of slowing down. The Guardian reported in June the ADF plans to use “model legislation” and lawsuits to overturn same-sex marriage, enact a total abortion ban and strip away trans rights in the U.S.

Continued: https://xtramagazine.com/power/politics/alliance-defending-freedom-adf-hate-group-canada-gerald-chipeur-255467

Kenya/UK – Universities are the Latest Battleground For the Anti-Abortion Movement

Sian Norris
11 November 2022

Students and universities have become the latest battleground for the global anti-abortion movement, including in the US and the UK where religious freedom groups support so-called “pro life” students and societies and are quoted in Government reports on free speech.

Having previously focused their energy on faith-based groups, increasingly anti-gender groups are targeting youth communities. In Kenya and countries where access to safe and legal abortion is more contested, anti-abortion groups have been gaining ground among student populations, medical student and President of the Medical Students Association of Kenya Zebedee Nyakwara Motanya tells Byline Times. He believes women have the right to reproductive healthcare and sees first-hand the impact of unsafe abortion in the hospital wards where he trains.

Continued: https://bylinetimes.com/2022/11/11/universities-are-the-latest-battleground-for-the-anti-abortion-movement/

UK government honoured anti-abortion figure before editing women’s rights statement

Former US envoy given award at conference now engulfed in row over changes to reproductive rights pledges, while participant list revealed to have included members of group accused of hate speech

Lizzy Davies
Tue 9 Aug 2022

The British government presented a vehemently anti-abortion former US envoy with an award for his services to freedom of religion just days before watering down a statement on gender equality to remove commitments to reproductive rights.

Sam Brownback, a former governor of Kansas who targeted abortion rights while in office and then became Donald Trump’s ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, was given the award during the international ministerial conference for freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) held in London last month.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/aug/09/uk-government-award-anti-abortion-figure-sam-brownback-edited-reproductive-rights-statement

Global Anti-Abortion Coalition Targets the Organization of American States

The conservative backlash against efforts to expand sexual and reproductive rights in the Americas threatens a dangerous regression in human rights.

Lynn M. Morgan
June 4, 2021

It has been a good year for Latin American sexual and reproductive rights movements. Costa Rica became the first Central American country to legalize same-sex marriage in May 2020, and Argentina legalized abortion in December 2020. The Biden-Harris administration moved quickly in 2021 to rescind former President Trump’s Mexico City policy, also known as the global gag rule; disband former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Commission on Unalienable Rights; and renounce the Geneva Consensus Declaration, which included the assertion that there is “no international right to abortion.” Optimists note a wave of support for sexual and reproductive rights in Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and elsewhere in the hemisphere.

Continued: https://nacla.org/news/2021/06/04/global-anti-abortion-coalition-targets-organization-american-states

Sweden abortion: Nurses fail in European court case

Sweden abortion: Nurses fail in European court case

13 March 2020

Two nurses denied jobs as midwives in Sweden because of their refusal to perform abortions have lost their legal action against Sweden at the European Court of Human Rights.

Swedish-born Ellinor Grimmark and Linda Steen from Norway object to abortion because of their Christian faith.

Swedish law requires midwives to carry out abortions - and several Swedish courts ruled against the two women.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51874119

Swedish midwives who oppose abortion fail in rights case

Swedish midwives who oppose abortion fail in rights case
Women argued that being denied employment breached their rights to freedom of religion and conscience

Reuters
Fri 13 Mar 2020

Two nurses denied midwife jobs as midwives for refusing to carry out abortions have lost their legal bid to take Sweden to a top European court for violating their religious beliefs.

Ellinor Grimmark and Linda Steen had told the European court of human rights (ECHR) that being denied employment due to their beliefs against abortion was an illegal breach of their rights to freedom of religion and conscience.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/mar/13/swedish-midwives-who-oppose-abortion-fail-in-rights-case