HANDS OFF OUR BODIES: Feminists protest Christian anti-abortion group
On 6th September 2025, a coalition of feminist, migrant, disabled and trans campaigners held a counter-demonstration against the UK’s largest anti-abortion organisation. March for Life UK, an offshoot of the American group, uses anti-abortion rhetoric to promote the wider agenda of the far right.
Why are we countering March for Life?
Well-funded antifeminist, anti-trans, and ableist groups like March for Life are the sharp end of a fascist project to control our bodies and our lives. Their attack on abortion access is a direct attack on women’s rights, queer liberation, disability justice, and racial equity. They advocate a return to the patriarchal traditional nuclear family. This leads them to target trans, queer and disabled people; attack immigration centres and mosques; and indoctrinate young people to their politics of hatred.
The March for Life is well-funded by the United States. They usually source private security for the event, and every year they bus in supporters from across the country. Over the last years the number of far right nationalists, alt-right streamers and religious fundamendalists that join their ranks grows. This year they were prepared for us with an angry mob carrying St George Cross flags, Union Flags, religious flags, wooden crosses and placards. Alt-right streamers, as well as monks and nuns, and even men dressed as crusaders and wielding wooden swords joined their ranks!
Demonstrators from “Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising” flown in from the US also joined them this year. PAAU say they are “committed to progressive feminist values”, yet are committed to ending access to terminations. Their director of activism Lauren Handy received a pardon from Donald Trump and was released from prison in January 2025 after having been sentenced for blockading an abortion clinic. PAAU are funded to do a European tour this autumn. They plan to “lead a series of student trainings, activist workshops, and on-the-ground sidewalk counseling sessions with the leading youth-led pro-life groups in Europe”.
We brought energy and noise on the day.
On the day we gathered around 200 people from across the political spectrum including Amnesty International in our counter. We had speeches, disco music, pro-choice and anti-fascist chants. Our crowd was energized – shouting, singing and blowing whistles and horns to drown out the hateful ranting of the aggressive far right provocateurs.
We blocked their route to Parliament
After shouting out our presence loud and clear to disrupt their speeches inside the Emmanuel Centre, it was time for March for Life to exit and march for Parliament Square.
Once again we managed to block their route, forcing them to take a different route to parliament. During the blocking one of the alt right streamers got a bit too agressive trying to film protesters and invading people’s personal space. He was unfortunately punched and his phone was smashed.
Afterwards we marched off to join the other abortion rights demo as well as the Defend our Juries action in Parliament Square. However we were blocked by the police. We tried to negotiate with them but were threatened with kettling.
Eventually we slowly disbanded and safely made our way home. However on the way we found out that participants in March for Life had punctured a tyre of the van which was carrying our soundsystem that was parked on ‘their side’ of the road.
We need to all mobilise against the rise of the far right
The far-right is on the rise and are marching in more ways than one. There is a probably large Tommy Robinson backed fascist march planned for next Saturday, 13th September. Incidents of racist assault are on the rise and we see attacks on migrant hotels accompanied by St George’s cross flags and emboldened racists on the streets everywhere. Confronting the far right and their alliance with evangelical Christians is particularly important in a moment where alledgedly protecting women and children is used to legitimise violence against minorities .
We see their project clearly. They attack from multiple sides, trying to strip bodily autonomy and freedom of self-determination from anyone who challenges their narrow, oppressive world. They want to dictate who is worthy of freedom, choice, independence, care, and life itself. We can’t let the far right turn back the clock on reproductive justice and bodily autonomy. We need the whole of society to mobilise against the rise of the far right in our communities.
“In Britain we are seeing far right forces coalesce around control, control of the borders and control of our bodies. We see attacks on trans people and trans healthcare as the same as attacks on reproductive justice and body autonomy. The same hormones that facilitate transition, allow abortion, trans and feminist struggle are linked down to the chemical level”
June C – RS21 trans caucus organiser
This fight goes beyond the UK. Across the world in Latin America, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Turkey and the US to name but a few, rightwing movements led by misogynists threaten the rights of women, LGBTQ+ people and migrants. This makes our international solidarity and cooperation essential.
“We have seen fundamentalism take over Brazil, groups claiming to “protect the unborn” while ignoring the lives of those already living – women, girls, trans and non-binary people who can get pregnant. There they have campaingend outside hospitals to stop 9 or 10 year-old girls who have been raped by family members from getting abortion.These groups are not pro-life, they are pro patriarchal control”
Brazil Matters organiser
Together, we fight for reproductive justice for all! But also for the freedom to live, to choose, to exist without apology.
We are organising a feminist assembly in Autumn
We need a revived feminist movement that can oppose the growing popularity of far-right ideas worldwide. This is why the coalition is organising a feminist assembly on the 9th of November. We want to widen the discussion on what reproductive justice means for all of us and how it intersects with anti-fascist, anti-austerity and trans-liberation struggles.
Coalition members
- Anti Capitalist Resistance
- Brazil Matters
- Feminist Assembly of Latin Americans
- Feminist Fightback
- Feminist Library
- Hackney Anarchists
- Razem
- RS21
- Socialist Women’s Union (Sosyalist Kadınlar Birliği – SKB)
- Young Struggle