Brussels, the quiet front line of Europe’s abortion wars

Conservative religious groups, US-linked think tanks and faith-based organisations are increasingly using the EU capital to push hardline anti-abortion views – blurring the line between belief, lobbying and politics

Emma Pirnay / Thomas Mangin – Euractiv
Jan 7, 2025

Brussels has become an unlikely hub for a well-funded conservative push against abortion rights, as religious organisations, lobby groups and foreign think tanks quietly expand their footprint near the EU’s centres of power.

In late September, American preacher Franklin Graham came to Brussels’ ING Arena to take centre stage at his Festival of Hope. A multimillionaire who inherited his father Billy’s evangelism empire, Graham is known for comparing abortion to “murder” and for his close ties to Donald Trump.

Continued: https://www.euractiv.com/news/ripe-for-harvest-brussels-growing-web-of-anti-abortion-religious-influence/

07.01.2026

Commentary

Camille Gervais

Center for Reproductive Rights

European Parliamentary Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Rights

Franklin Graham

Heritage Foundation

My Voice My Choice campaign

Guatemala – Hidden in plain sight: The lobby group restricting rights in Latin America

Founded by members of shadowy Catholic organisation Opus Dei, the AFI has become one of Guatemala’s most influential groups

26 November 2024
OpenDemocracy

In the first half of this year, seven girls aged between 10 and 14 gave birth in Guatemala every single day.

Guatemalan law states that these 1,298 girls are the victims of sexual violence. Medical professionals say their pregnancies pose a high risk to their physical and mental health. But the Asociación la Familia Importa (AFI), Guatemala’s most influential anti-abortion organisation, has focused on preventing such girls from having abortions at any cost – and it is succeeding.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/afi-guatemala-opus-dei-anti-abortion-restrict-rights-latin-america/

26.11.2024

American Convention on Human Rights

anti-choice misinformation

anti-choice misogyny

anti-choice terrorism

anti-choice violence

Asociación la Familia Importa

Beatriz abortion

Bernardo Arévalo

Catholic Church

César Brañas Castillo

comprehensive sexuality education

Elvira Estradé

Enlace

Family Matters Association

Family Research Council

Geneva Consensus Declaration

Guatemala Leaks

Heritage Foundation

Human Life international

Humberto Grazioso

Jordán Rodas

Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer

Ligia Briz

Mayra Figueroa de Poggio

Mirna Cardona de González

Mirna Montenegro

Opus Dei

OSAR

Parliamentary Front for Life and Family

How an anti-abortion group in Brazil spreads disinformation with public cash

A São Paulo anti-abortion centre has forged lucrative ties to leading far-right political figure

Raphaela Ribeiro
2 June 2023

“PREGNANT?” scream the posters on São Paulo’s metro system, used by five million commuters every day. “Are you confused or completely alone…What are your options?” The urgent questions are superimposed on the silhouette of a woman’s face. Below is the logo of an organisation known as Cervi (Centre for Life Restructuring), followed by two phone numbers and the invitation “Call Us”.

Cervi has operated across Brazil for two decades and is linked to the Pregnancy Resource Center (PRC), a US network. Since the 1970s, the PRC has helped create so-called ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ across the US and in several other countries. The crisis pregnancy centres, many of which are linked to large evangelical Christian networks such as Heartbeat International and CareNet, pose as abortion service providers. However, their real mission is to dissuade women and pregnant people from having an abortion using tactics such as disinformation and emotional pressure, as a 2020 openDemocracy investigation revealed.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/brazil-sao-paulo-anti-abortion-public-money-disinformation/

In Honduras, the Right Is Permanently Locking in Its Abortion Ban

BY SUYAPA PORTILLO
Jacobin Magazine, March 1, 2021

In a country
that is already home to some of the worst restrictions on women’s rights, the
Honduran Congress voted last month to lock in its bans on abortion and gay
marriage, making them almost impossible to overturn. It’s a reminder that, as
the feminist green tide washes over much of Latin America, there is still much
work to be done.

On January 28, on the heels of Honduran Women’s Day (January 25), the far-right
Nationalist Party–led Congress dealt a blow to feminists, LGBT people, and
countless Hondurans who believe in equality and human rights. With little
notice and virtually no public input, the Congress voted to amend the constitution
by enshrining the “right to life at conception” and by instituting a narrow
definition of marriage as “between a man and a woman.” Rushing the vote along
partisan lines, normal rules of procedure were suspended, and even advocates
closely following these issues were blindsided by the alacrity of the
fundamental change to the nation’s most important document.

Continued: https://jacobinmag.com/2021/03/honduras-abortion-ban-constitutional-amendment

Argentine doctors protest legal abortion ahead of key vote

Argentine doctors protest legal abortion ahead of key vote

By almudena calatrava, associated press
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Aug 1, 2018

A campaign to expand legal abortions in the homeland of Pope Francis is bitterly dividing Argentines — and increasingly even the profession that would be asked to carry them out.

Hundreds of physicians have staged anti-abortion protests as an abortion rights bill moves toward a vote in the Senate next week. Some have demonstrated while carrying fetus-shaped dolls and waving signs saying: "I'm a doctor, not a murderer." At one recent protest, they laid white medical coats on the ground outside the presidential palace.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/argentine-doctors-protest-legal-abortion-ahead-key-vote-56955758

USA – The anti-abortion conservative quietly guiding Trump’s supreme court pick

The anti-abortion conservative quietly guiding Trump's supreme court pick

Jon Swaine in New York
Fri 6 Jul 2018

Just 20 months ago, Leonard Leo’s life’s work appeared in jeopardy. Hillary Clinton would soon be elected president. A liberal judge would be chosen to replace Antonin Scalia, the late lodestar of American conservatism, on the supreme court.

“Staring at that vacancy, fear permeated every day in that countdown to November 8,” Leo recalled last year, in a speech to fellow religious conservatives. His three-decade fight to push the US judiciary to the right – and enable a crackdown on abortion – looked to be lost.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/jul/06/leonard-leo-supreme-court-replacement-trump-justice-nomination-abortion