How US-funded anti-abortion activism in the UK now threatens US-UK trade deal

US-funded anti-abortion activity has been growing in recent years. But this week it has exploded onto the front pages as it is now reportedly threatening the UK getting a trade deal with the US. A UK-US trade deal was a proposed alternative to the UK being hit by the ‘global tariffs’ promised by  President Trump.

On Sunday the US State Department tweeted ‘we are concerned about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom… While recently in the UK, [we] met with Livia Tossici-Bolt, who faces criminal charges for offering conversation within a legally prohibited “buffer zone” at an abortion clinic. We are monitoring her case. It is important that the UK respect and protect freedom of expression.’ Yesterday the Telegraph reported on its front page an unnamed source familiar with the negotiations as adding ‘no free trade without free speech’.

The UK Government has since disputed that free speech issues have at all featured in ongoing trade negotiations. But Humanists UK is now highlighting that the reason this is even being discussed is because of the increasing role of US-funded anti-abortion advocacy in the UK.

ADF International

At the centre of the case is the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a US-based Christian fundamentalist pressure group that is increasingly present in the UK. Today the National reports that the UK arm of the group received over £1.1 million last year from its US parent entity Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), almost triple what it got two years ago.

ADF is funding and supporting Livia Tossici-Bolt’s case. It even supplied a picture of her to the Telegraph. But ADF is also extremely well connected with the Republican Party. Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House of Representatives – second in the presidential line of succession – used to work as an ADF Attorney. It seems highly possible that it is ADF’s increasing work in the UK, and its connection to the Trump administration, that has led to these reports.

Misplaced notions about safe access zones

But the US fears around free speech in the UK are unfounded. Safe access zones do not stop people from protesting against others having abortions, or from praying that they don’t. They just prevent them from doing so in a way likely to cause others alarm or distress, or that takes away their privacy. They simply require protestors to move 150 metres down the road.

Before the safe access zone laws came in, harassment was rife, with graphic images of foetuses common, and women being filmed entering and leaving. Rachael Clarke of bpas recently told the Guardian ‘We had every­thing from people telling women that having an abortion was putting their baby in a meat grinder to people following nurses down the road in the dark telling them they were killing babies.’ Bournemouth in particular saw more than 500 reports of harassment. After years of ongoing public consultation and debates in Parliament, England and Wales joined Scotland and Northern Ireland in implementing country-wide safe access zones in 2024.

Livia Tossici-Bolt is reportedly a seasoned anti-abortion campaigner – head of the Bournemouth branch of the Christian anti-abortion charity 40 Days of Life. Hers is one of a number of similar UK cases that ADF is now involved in, representing anti-abortion activists who have got in trouble over safe access zone laws. Another, Adam Smith-Connor, also a Bournemouth protestor, was referred to in JD Vance’s Munich Security Conference speech in February.

Humanists UK Public Affairs Manager Karen Wright commented:

‘When you look, there is a clear pattern here of US-funded anti-abortion activists testing the limits of the new UK law, seemingly trying to find the most acceptable-looking behaviour to gain public sympathy and then using that to try to tear down the law. It is deeply concerning to see efforts from outside groups attempting to influence domestic law, particularly when it comes to women’s reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy.

‘People in the UK overwhelmingly support legal, safe, and accessible abortion, and they overwhelmingly support safe access zones. They do not stifle free speech – they merely prevent harassment in access to healthcare.’