A Christian legal aid group that has “fundamentally changed American society” through U.S. courts is rapidly expanding its work around the world.
British anti-abortion activist Isabel Vaughn-Spruce says she wasn’t protesting when she stood silently in a protected zone outside an abortion clinic near her church in Birmingham, England.
“I internally reasoned that surely my silent thoughts should still be allowed to happen inside that zone. My prayers. So I went and silently prayed outside the abortion center, initially just when it was closed, and I was arrested because of that, twice”, Vaughn-Spruce told CBS News.
U.K. law establishes . They are meant to shield women seeking care from protesters. The zone boundaries are marked by signs around facilities that provide abortion services.
Vaughn-Spruce said that, upon her arrest, she reached out to a legal group with American roots — Alliance Defending Freedom International — for help. In the end, she was not convicted of any offenses.
“Standing up for these issues and for freedoms, whether that’s in America or any other country, essentially that’s still the same. So the roots of an organization, in a way, whether it’s American or English, doesn’t really make any difference to me”, Vaughn-Spruce said. “The work that [ADF] are doing has been absolutely tremendous.” What is Alliance Defending Freedom?
ADF International U.K. is a registered charity in Britain that is supported by donations from ADF in the United States, according to its financial disclosures.
ADF, launched in 1994 and, boasting a network of over 4,500 attorneys, describes itself as “one of the leading Christian law firms committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, marriage and family, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.”
It provides legal support to people whose cases are in line with its causes.
ADF lawyers argued on behalf of the plaintiffs who sought a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that would have restricted access to the widely used abortion pill mifepristone across the country, but the court rejected their argument in a , upholding access to the drug. The group also supported the Mississippi case that eventually went to the Supreme Court to .
ADF says it has played a role in at least 74 Supreme Court victories in total and represented 15 parties that won victories at America’s highest court.ADF’s fast-growing international operations
“I think Americans know very, very little about what these American organizations are exporting in terms of rights-stripping policies into other countries”, Heidi Beirich, founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told CBS News.
