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

Is it just the one MP they've managed to connect with these people? Or did I miss more detail in the article? Seems all round odd if they've spent a lot of money but only accessed one MP. Or good. As it would indicate our MPs aren't up for American money to import their politics - apart from the one named obviously.

I'm against the uncritical importation of US politics. We've had enough of it in recent years at a societal level (at least). GLAAD has had the most success of course, funding a number of Labour MPs to front the transing of gay children.

There are many MPs in favour of reducing access to abortion even without American money.

The reason trans lobbyists were so successful was because they followed a well worn path trodden by powerful men before them.

It makes a mockery of democracy.

I can't feel complacent about our abortion rights. The left-wing misogynists have worked hard to weaken and divide the class of woman. When right-wing misogynists try and take away a right so fundamentally linked to biology, I worry that the resistance will be too splintered and somehow co-opted by males.

Any donations will have to be recorded. They won't be able to hide this in the Dentons way.

This is my belief, too.

We have a really good compromise in the country by seeing abortion as a medical issue, not a rights issue. No one wants to see a womens health compromised, or children born in pain.

As soon as we demand abortion as a right, that medical focus is ignored. The idea that a women has a right to simply change her mind at any time becomes the talking point, not the fact that late abortions are for medical reasons. Its women who desperately want to keep their child, but cannot who have late terminations.

We just have to ignore these people, and don't fall into the trap of changing what works for us.

Not always literally, I know. It's like men's rights in general, though - lots of willing female help. Ultimately the US anti-abortion movement is about men controlling and punishing women. So l could have put it differently but I stand by what I said.

As soon as we demand abortion as a right, that medical focus is ignored. The idea that a women has a right to simply change her mind at any time becomes the talking point

This was my concern about the demand for continuing with the covid measures. My first worry with those was women being coerced into decisions at home.

In my view it is foolhardy to pretend that advances in care for premature babies isn't something that needs to be examined with thought and attention as well. It does sometimes feel like this is put on the back burner. And at the same time, there's a demand for recognising miscarriages. You can't hold of it these together and not face the fact it will create questions that need answers.

Andrew Doyle regularly platforms (and agrees with) Lois McLatchie, the senior legal communications officer of ADF UK on Free Speech Nation reguarding reduction of the legal gestation period allowed for abortion in the UK. She's been on other GB News shows too (as have other anti-abortion campaigners), this is something they are ready to get behind in a big way.

Absolutely agree. Reading so many of the sad stories of miscarried babies needing recognition of "personhood" and understanding the emotional need for this, but at the same time recognising that it does raise issues as to whether aborted babies then have the same rights. I sincerely apologise to those who have gone through this, but it is a concern if this right is used to limit access to terminations.

AI entirely agree about the value of the compromise position we already have. It's a fudge but it has worked. But putting pressure on BPAS to release names isn't respecting that compromise and it is turning the debate into one about competing rights. A push for abortion on demand right up to birth would have the same effect.

*I entirely agree

Also our position is hard won. It was a slog, and a winning of public hearts and minds. It is a continued position that it's a free vote. There's no way I'd want that given up and no way I'd support the whipping of MPs on any position on abortion. That way madness lies.

https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/47568-where-does-the-british-public-stand-on-abortion-in-2023

They can bang on as much as they like but the public isn’t with them thankfully. I do think vigilance is required but the fundamental idea of abortion has a significant level of support.

One does wonder why they'd bother. I suppose its for PR purposes. Plenty of other countries they could be interfering with far more easily, where courts and govs are more.open to bribery etc.

That survey is extremely reassuring, Noicant, but money is being spent to gain influence. We are a very different country to the USA, but we can't be complacent. As a pp said, look how readily the left imports US ideas.

*in a different area, I mean.

Quite. Well said 👏

This from a country that has absurd gun laws they cannot get rid of (probably the same group as the anti-abortionists), the U.S. maternal mortality rate at a 32.9 deaths per 100,000 births, provides no social security or health system for all, and many still believe the earth is flat.

America is just backward is many ways - they need to get their own house before they come telling us what to do.

Yes, you missed a detail in the article. The para I quoted above:

"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."

This group's got the key of the side door.

I think you'd be interested to look more closely at the right wing think tanks. They get millions from overseas donors, donate a lot to the Conservative government and are very influential.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/what-is-55-tufton-street-b2205193.html

They may not be pushing the same agenda as Dentons but they are a way for organisations to use money to influence UK politics in a covert way.

Why can't they just fuck off.
I had to have a TFMR for medical reasons. Horrific position to be in however I'm glad that I had the choice to be able to do this.
I know it's a very loaded subject and each has their own opinion which is fair enough.
It's just sad that this day and age, we as women have to have other peoples choices shoved down our throats with no regards to our own choices. It's disgusting.

I’m assuming this is the APPG to which the article refers. It was founded in 2012 and includes a wide range of MPs & peers from all parties and cross benchers

https://appgfreedomofreligionorbelief.org/appg/

there are 25 stakeholders of which ADF is one, others include Islamic, Jewish, Christian, and humanist groups

Yes.
The current push on the rights of Doens Syndrome foetuses is also a trojan horse designed to attack the current "fudge". If that gained traction and went through it would put a stop to a lot of TFMR and also open a door to a discussion about what disability is "bad enough" for TFMR. Which then allows restriction of abortion, and also starts to set a precedent for what "acceptable" grounds are.

I think we should as feminists be more hard line the other way, and support abortion "as early as possible, as late as necessary". It's easier to hold a black and white position and it would help stop these pro-life American groups nibbling round the edges.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a large Trans/Progress Pride flag draped outside of the local abortion clinic. I'm imagining that the staff had, as yet, become unaware of this, and would remove it once they had. I hope so, anyway.

It occurred to me that trans activists were appropriating women's abortion rights in the service of their own agenda - and I do not see how any good can come of this. It seemed an act of provocation; and furthermore was drawing attention to the clinic, which keeps a low profile, and at which many vulnerable women turn up hoping to enter and leave quietly and without a fuss.

A push for abortion on demand right up to birth would have the same effect.

Which may well be why that is suddenly being funded (if what a PP states is accurate).

There has for many years been a fairly stable situation in Great Britain (excluding NI), where anti-abortionists agitate while most other people ignore them and treat the whole matter of abortion as settled.

It's very hard to effect change in that environment.

So the first step is to disrupt that stability by starting fights. Fights in either direction - never mind the detail as long as it's passionate and engaging and polarising.

This creates opportunities for those primed and ready to move in.

So I'm not at all surprised to hear of some unlooked-for campaigning for abortion on demand up to birth. The anti-abortionists need a Something to have their fight against, which isn't the fairly stable and well-supported current situation.

(Of course some actors will start fights on any issue; the Russian troll farms specialise in "slipping a knife into the cracks and wiggling". They interfered in both directions in black rights campaigning in the US:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_and_Black_Lives_Matter
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/30/blacktivist-facebook-account-russia-us-election )