US anti-abortion group lobbying Westminster

[LoobiJee]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/06/extreme-us-anti-abortion-group-ramps-up-lobbying-in-westminster

I suppose given the silo like nature of social media all that money disappears into ads in the feeds of potentially amenable readers.

Well, we need to stay vigilant.

I have read many 'Conspiracy Theory' articles over the years and this is one of the best yet. Not only is there no smoking gun, there is no gun or even smoke.

God's honest truth is that the right to abortion is a settled issue in the UK. We always need to watch the drive to reduce the gestation period because of "viability" but we are well practiced in doing this.

Dear Americans, stop imposing your views on other countries. You have already destroyed so much in your desire to dominate the world and now some of you seek to control women’s choices elsewhere.

Work on the problems created by your laws in your own country. As Christians you could help those living in poverty, fund education, health services and housing. Is that not more important? Acting in this manner appears you wish to control, rather than help.

God's honest truth is that the right to abortion is a settled issue in the UK

Like it is in the US? Roe v. Wade has decided it.

Oh wait...

it shouldn't be legal for these people to protest about rights that women in other countries have. When ireland was in the run up to the abortion referendum in early 2018 they were out in force, drove me mad. I was pro-choice and found it hard to deal with local pro-life campaigners, but flight-loads of americans who flew in to seek to oppose women's rights in another country. I felt rage! 😡

There is no legal right to abortion in the UK, only exemptions to the law. Therefore it is still possible for women to be prosecuted for having an abortion. Until this changes and the UK follows France's example of enshrining the right in law, women are at risk of changes to exemptions, or interpretation of the law.

In the lead-up to the destruction of Roe v Wade, there was lots of head-patting and shushing from people who claimed that there was no risk, that any talk of risk was showboating and that (this being the US) the Democrats shouldn't be wasting legislative time on something already settled, etc etc.

Within hours of Roe v Wade falling, as the deliberate outcome of a Republican president's actions, social media was abuzz with people yelling "the Democrats didn't stop us hard enough!"

Ignoring party, I've seen near identical head-patting and shushing going on in the UK.

Excuse me if I don't fall for it.

I haven't read the article because it's The Guardian, but are a bunch of foreigners really coming here and trying to change our laws?

Give them a flea in the ear. Send them home. With their tails between their legs.

This again exposes the wider prolem with lobbying. We're all aware of the success of the trans lobby in imposing their anti women anti safeguarding ideology on people by lobbying behind closed doors, getting politicians in their pockets and avoiding democratic accountability. This is another anti woman ideology operating behind closed doors, this time involving a USA based religious organisation with no stake in this country.
It's time we held politicians accountable for allowing lobbyists to buy their support in this way

From the article:
The UK branch of the US-based Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has more than doubled its spending since 2020 and been appointed a stakeholder in a parliamentary group on religious freedoms in a role that grants it direct access to MPs.

What.The.Fuck?

Unfortunately, it does seem like it is having an impact. Since the overturning of Roe v Wade, there has been quite intense lobbying and targeted funding of anti-abortion groups in the UK by groups from the US. Already, there seems to have been consequences. In the last 18 months, 6 women have been prosecuted for having illegal abortions; in the previous 55 years it was only 3. Obviously, these numbers are very small but they are worrying nonetheless.

BPAS tweeted yesterday that the charity has received "dozens of demands from the police for women's confidential medical records to pursue them for alleged abortion offences."

What's behind this level of police interest?

Tweet from BPAS

It appears to be related to accusing women of procuring abortion pills for use after 24 weeks.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68305991

A year ago I noticed the pro life lobby and the abortion on demand, up to term lobby both started hiring and fundraising like crazy. It's really worrying and as someone who broadly supports the position of the current law, I don't see women or babies benefitting from a hugely polarising nuclear arms race on this.

They are not “pro-life”. They are anti-abortion. They don’t care if women die.

Terminology aside, I don't think any significant change in the law is a good idea.

A change to the law to stop women being prosecuted is a good idea.

I'm certainly not in favour of sending vulnerable women to prison. That's madness. But I do think it would be better to properly fund NHS services so no-one feels the need to use medication to terminate a much later pregnancy. As someone who has had a still birth, I think it's fairly horrifying and don't think we should legalise it. We should make sure no woman ever has to resort to essentially a modern day back street abortion.

Even for those of us who are vehemently pro-life, we should still be concerned about the direction of travel we're seeing here. Pregnancies end on their own, and carelessly drafted laws and a climate of distrust will end up affecting women who miscarried. Miscarried wanted pregnancies, no less.

There are plenty of terrifying accounts of women being prosecuted for illegal terminations in the US and in South American countries, for what those women say were miscarriages. Even if it were guaranteed to never proceed as far as prosecution, do we want a world where women have to endure an invasive, combative police interview to convince an officer that it was a miscarriage while physically recovering from the experience?

It's certainly something that I'd have absolutely hated to go through myself, and I don't trust the police to get it right. I don't think women should be criminalised for ending pregnancies without medical oversight, and I don't believe it would stop at those women.

I have noticed an uptick in Conservatives talking about abortion
https://www.liamfox.co.uk/news/sir-liam-fox-mp-calls-change-outdated-and-discriminative-abortion-law

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/28/sacrifice-criminal-justice-bill-to-protect-unborn-children/

I really dislike the way American Evangelical money appears to be being used to influence UK politics at the moment. I don't think it should be acceptable for overseas organisations to lobby in this way.

Ugh. The right wing arm of the pincer movement in the war on women's rights.
The decriminalisation of abortion is essential if the current situation makes women vulnerable to persecution by ideologues.

However, the right to an abortion can never be enshrined in law in this country because any government can change the law. It's one downside of the doctrine of the supremacy of Parliament. We could never have what French women have. What needs to be had and settled (again) is the debate, so that it is unthinkable, political suicide for a political party to try to restrict availability further than it is now.

And of course the police apparently have all the resources in the world available to persecute women at the behest of men.

How depressing. The effective decriminalisation of rape and the push for the removal of the availability of abortion - Britain in 2024.

It is not just at the behest of men. Women in parliament are strongly behind this campaign. Miriam Cates for example is in favour of reducing access to abortion. And Nadine Dorries tabled an amendment or similar years ago. There is a large. Group of 'pro-life' Tories. Which considering how little they care for those lives once here is ironic

im deeply cynical about this. LOJ is well known for scolding GC activists with “just you wait, if you don’t agree TWAW you’ll lose your abortion rights - and it will service you right!” And then funnily enough just as there have been cumulative weeks of push backs for TRA, the guardian publishes this

the Tories will be out at the next election, there is no religious right in the UK, it’s entirely different in America - this is just the guardian doing its thing. I’ve no doubt this American pressure group is here but in practical terms, there’s no evidence that it has a hope in hell of having any Influence at all.

There very much is a religious right in the U.K. There are several examples in the Conservative Party alone. This is a serious issue.
Don't underestimate how extreme some evangelical U.K. Christians are on this matter. A former colleague (debating this issue) implied I was going to hell for my D and C for a missed miscarriage.
In parliament there are examples of extreme evangelicals and bizarrely fundamental Catholics (Rees-Mogg and Dorries) express views I've never come across in decades of Catholic Church attendance.
The Times had editorials supporting the over turning of Roe V Wade. There is a real risk to the rights of women here, and I'd like to think this is something we can agree on.