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/)

Is British politics immune to US-style rightwing Christianity? We’re about to find out

Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson are increasingly espousing Christian ‘values’, and a wealthy US legal group is becoming influential – this could have dire consequences

Lamorna Ash
Tue 25 Nov 2025

Earlier this year, not long after Tommy Robinson embraced evangelical Christianity while in prison, the then Conservative MP Danny Kruger spoke in parliament about the need for a restoration of Britain through the “recovery of a Christian politics”. Less than two months later, Kruger joined Reform, and shortly after that, James Orr, a vociferously conservative theologian who has been described as JD Vance’s “English philosopher king”, was appointed as one of Reform’s senior advisers. The party’s leader, Nigel Farage, now frequently invokes the need for a return to “Judeo-Christian” values.

The British right is increasingly invoking the Christian tradition: the question is what it hopes to gain from doing so.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2025/nov/25/british-politics-us-rightwing-christianity-nigel-farage-tommy-robinson-adf

The worrying rise of US anti-abortion rhetoric is in full force – how deep is Reform UK’s involvement?

Money is pouring into anti-abortion campaigns in Britain, and it seems Nigel Farage’s party isn’t pushing back…

By Jennifer Savin
20 November 2025

There’s been a lot of talk recently suggesting that we need to keep a close eye on abortion rights here in the UK. With whisperings that what happened in America – the toppling of Roe v Wade, which left a 10-year-old denied an abortion – could happen here, especially if Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party makes it into power at the next election.

While nothing is guaranteed, it’s a scary thought – particularly as we made great strides with abortion care this year.

Continued: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a69468983/reform-uk-nigel-farage-abortion/

UK – Nigel Farage appoints right-wing anti-abortion theologian as Reform senior adviser

Professor James Orr is understood to be close to JD Vance and influential in Donald Trump’s administration with his right-wing views on abortion and immigration

David Maddox
Sunday 19 October

Reform has been accused of “importing divisive and dangerous ideas” from Maga politics in the US after a right-wing theologian who opposes abortion in all cases joined the party as Nigel Farage’s adviser.

Cambridge University professor James Orr, who heads the Centre for a Better Britain think tank, is an influential figure in Donald Trump’s administration and is admired by vice-president JD Vance.

Continued: https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/politics/farage-james-orr-rightwing-theologian-reform-b2848126.html

19.10.2025

News

Centre for a Better Britain

Farage urged to explain anti-abortion links to meeting with Trump officials

Lib Dems accuse Reform leader of wanting to water down women’s rights after reports of help from advocacy group

Rowena Mason
Thu 16 Oct 2025

Nigel Farage has been urged to explain why a US anti-abortion advocacy group helped arrange a meeting in London with Trump administration officials and diplomats.

The meeting, first reported by the New York Times, took place in March between Farage and a delegation from Trump’s state department, which it said was overseen by the US embassy and brokered by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) group. The meeting was said to have discussed abortion rights, free speech and online safety laws.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/oct/16/farage-urged-to-explain-anti-abortion-links-to-meeting-with-trump-officials

16.10.2025

News

Alliance Defending Freedom

UK – Abortion is close to decriminalisation. But how quickly can rights and progress be rolled back?

More than 100 women are believed to have been arrested on suspicion of illegal abortion over the last five years in England and Wales, but a new law will offer greater protections. The Big Issue asks experts if rights could still be under threat

Isabella McRae
13 Oct 2025

Women have been prosecuted for having an abortion for centuries. Even in recent years, in this country, women suspected of an illegal abortion have been arrested straight from the hospital ward, their homes searched and their children taken away. But a new law set to be passed in England and Wales means that abortion is a step closer to decriminalisation.

Abortion was legalised in 1967, meaning women can have an abortion up to 23 weeks and six days of a pregnancy, provided two doctors agree it meets certain criteria. The laws which are currently used to prosecute women in England were created in the Victorian era.

Continued: https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/abortion-decriminalisation-womens-rights-uk/

UK – Reform ‘proudly embracing’ anti-abortion politics as experts warn issue faces US-style politicisation in UK

Athena Stavrou
Sun 28 September 2025

Campaigners have warned that Reform UK has become a “political refuge for anti-abortion politicians” amid fears Britain could experience a US-style politicisation of the issue.

Pro-choice activists have raised the alarm after several political figures who have previously called for greater restrictions on abortion defected to Nigel Farage’s party.”

Continued: https://au.news.yahoo.com/reform-proudly-embracing-anti-abortion-100056164.html

UK – No complacency on access to abortion

20 September, 2025
Ali Brown

On Tuesday 17 June, Parliament voted through an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that, once law, ensures that people in England and Wales will no longer be open to prosecution for ending their own pregnancy.

This victory comes at a crucial time. Recent years have seen a 200% increase in criminal investigations and imprisonments for pregnancy loss, for both pregnant people and their partners. In the four-year period between 2020 and 2023, 11 cases concerning abortion reached a court, resulting in 5 convictions.

Continued: https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2025-09-20/no-complacency-access-abortion

20.09.2025

Crime and Policing bill

UK – Farage’s £13,000 speech to anti-abortion extremists

Catherine Neilan
Saturday 23 August 2025

On a visit to the US last year, Nigel Farage told a room of abortion “abolitionists”, extreme faith groups and alt-right groups they were “saving western civilisation”.

The Reform UK leader lists £25,000 in earnings from AZ Liberty Network on his register of interests. The sum includes £13,000 for a speech he gave last August to a collection of American lobby groups at the Keep Arizona Free Summit.

Continued: https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/farages-13000-speech-to-anti-abortion-extremists

23.08.2025

News

Alliance Defending Freedom

anti-choice extremism

anti-choice misogyny

AZ Liberty Network

Candace Owens

Keep Arizona Free Summit

UK / Northern Ireland – We deserve five-star reproductive rights

MPs missed a chance to remove the threat of prosecution from anyone helping families make decisions about their own lives. With the far right on the march, it’s time to defend our rights.

By Emma Campbell
June 28, 2025

Campaigners were celebrating last week as the UK parliament took the first step to defend reproductive rights. But, as an abortion activist working here in Belfast, I was frustrated at a lack of willingness to fix the problems with the amendment. Even if it becomes law, the work that I do every day helping people here in Northern Ireland would still see me facing criminal charges if I did it in England and Wales.

I’ve been fighting for reproductive rights for 15 years and helping people access abortions much longer. When we started talking about removing the threat of prosecution from people making decisions about their lives and their families, non-governmental organisations around us were convinced we would never change the law in our lifetime. But when we’re striving for change we need hopeful imagination.

Continued: https://goodlawproject.org/emma-campbell-we-deserve-five-star-reproductive-rights/