Right To Life UK - A Good Year.

 Dear Friends,

Thank you for your support in 2021! Right To Life UK has had a challenging and busy year, with the abortion lobby attempting to further exploit the COVID-19 crisis at every step to seek changes to abortion legislation and policy. Thanks to your support, we have been able to put up a strong fight every time they have attempted to advance their campaign in Parliament, the media and amongst the wider public. Alongside this, we have been able to secure a number of key victories and achievements. I wanted to share some of these with you and thank you for your support. These important victories could not have happened without you. 1. Defeat of major attempt to introduce abortion on demand, for any reason, up to birth In July, the abortion lobby staged a major attempt to introduce abortion on demand, for any reason, up to birth, to England and Wales by hijacking the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. They also attempted to pass a law change that would have introduced a jail sentence of up to two years for offering support to women outside abortion clinics nationwide. The attempt to hijack the UK Government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill with these two extreme abortion proposals failed, in a major pro-life victory.  To put in perspective how embarrassing a defeat on these amendments would have been for the abortion lobby, if they had taken the amendments through to a vote and lost, this would have been the first time that a pro-abortion amendment or Bill had been defeated in a vote in UK history. Thank you to the thousands of people that rallied to get friends and family to email their MPs. MPs received more emails ahead of this vote than they have ever received ahead of an abortion vote, and in some cases, MPs received more emails on this issue than they had received on any other issue while in office. Thank you also to our supporters who gave so generously to enable us to have the resources in place to run a very large campaign against these amendments.  We spent a number of months preparing for this battle. This project included building a larger network of relationships with active pro-life MPs in Parliament. Alongside this, we worked to place a large number of positive pro-life articles in the mainstream media to provide the right momentum in the public eye for our side over this period.  The final key component involved further building a very large base of grassroots supporters in every constituency in the country. This meant that when we asked people like you to email their MPs, it became crystal clear that a large number of people in their constituencies did not want these extreme changes.  In October, the abortion lobby tried again to introduce extreme changes to abortion law by hijacking the Government’s Health and Care Bill. Again, following a large campaign both inside and out of Parliament that included thousands of people around the country contacting their MPs, this second attempt at making extreme change changes to abortion law failed. None of this would have been in place in order to help achieve these amazing victories without your generous financial support. Thank you. 2. Assisted suicide Bill fails to go to vote In October, following mass opposition from over 60 Peers who spoke against Baroness Meacher’s assisted suicide Bill in the House of Lords, Baroness Meacher did not take her assisted suicide Bill to a vote at Second Reading. The assisted suicide lobby would likely have pushed for a vote at Second Reading if they felt they had the numbers to win a division, which would have helped give additional momentum to the assisted suicide lobby’s campaign to introduce assisted suicide. However, it looks like they realised that they would be unlikely to have sufficient support to win a vote, and so did not take it to a division. This could not have happened without the amazing work of thousands of Right To Life UK supporters, like you, who wrote to Peers ahead of the debate. A number of Peers quoted letters from supporters in the debate and Baroness Stroud said that she has received more correspondence on this issue than any other in her time in the House of Lords. The campaign against the Bill included the publishing of a very large number of opinion pieces in mainstream media outlets from MPs, Peers, doctors, and other experts highlighting major issues with introducing assisted suicide.  Thank you again to our supporters who gave so generously to enable us to have the resources in place to work closely with MPs, Peers and like-minded organisations to run a very large campaign against this Bill. Again, none of this would have been in place in order to help achieve this great outcome without your generous financial support. The Bill has proceeded onto Committee Stage, but is unlikely to be given time in Parliament to be debated in the House of Commons and become law, given that it is not supported by the Government. Unfortunately, this is not the end. Like the abortion lobby, the assisted suicide lobby headed by ‘Dignity in Dying’ never sleeps. We know they will be back shortly with their next attempt to introduce assisted suicide. We will be working hard to oppose them at every step along the way and will need your help with contacting MPs and other activities. 3. Strong support in Parliament for three pro-life changes to abortion legislation in England and Wales In October, a cross-party group of pro-life MPs tabled three abortion amendments to the Government’s flagship Health and Care Bill to change abortion legislation.  The amendments proposed a reduction to the abortion time limit, a ban on sex-selective abortion, and an end to abortion up to birth for disabilities including Down’s syndrome, cleft lip and club foot.  This is the first time in a number of years that pro-life MPs have gone on the offensive and tabled pro-life changes to abortion legislation. Thank you to everyone who wrote to their MPs asking them to support the amendments. As these amendments were probing amendments, they were not taken to a vote, but a large number of MPs across different parties showed their support for these amendments by signing them.  A large number of constituents have had positive feedback from their MPs indicating that they support these pro-life changes to legislation. There was also some excellent mainstream media coverage of these amendments. This has significantly raised the profile of these law changes among MPs and provided our Public Affairs team with a large amount of new data on where particular MPs stand on these three specific law changes.  This is just the beginning - the information gathered from the tabling of these amendments will be used in 2022 to inform our Public Affairs team’s interactions with MPs around these law changes and further build momentum inside Parliament for changing the law in these areas, which would save many lives. 4. Continued growth of digital news platform and most visited pro-life website in Europe In 2021, we have further grown the Right To Life digital news platform so that it has been able to reach a far wider audience of people with pro-life news, which keeps people informed and helps change even more hearts and minds on life issues. Our website is already the most viewed pro-life website in Europe and the fourth most viewed pro-life website in the world - and the growth of our digital news platform has enabled us to reach even more people.  Our digital team built the platform from the ground up so that it provides visitors with the world-class user-driven design experience that they would expect from a platform run by a major global media outlet. We have also designed the platform so that it is easily viewable across desktop, mobile and tablet, as increasing numbers of people are accessing content on their mobile phones and tablet devices. We currently have good relationships with a number of mainstream media outlets, which ensures that we get to regularly comment in the media. That said, we can’t always ensure that these articles cover all the key points that the public need to know about a given issue. Right To Life News ensures that we have a platform where reliable pro-life news is accessible to everyone in the UK and beyond - and that we are not limited by what editors in major newspapers choose to publish.  Thank you to the many supporters who have regularly used the news service and shared the articles - you have played a big part in making this news service a success. In 2022, we will be rolling out further plans to increase the number of people we are reaching with well-written, useful content through the news service and our wider website - this will help ensure we reach many more people. 5. Our digital strategy is changing even more hearts and minds of a new generation online In 2021, we have worked on further growing our digital strategy to reach an even larger audience online with smart, relevant and viral-focused content. Our social media channels across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn and TikTok enable us to reach a new generation of people on a massive scale allowing us to reach tens of millions of people across these platforms during the year. We have further built our in-house capability to produce world-class digital content - all of this has been produced in-house by our digital team for a fraction of the cost of hiring leading agencies. Responding to the rise of video content on social media, we have further developed our in-house digital video capacity. This has allowed us to produce more world-class videos that we have utilised in our campaigns and on social media. Alongside our social media strategy, we have further developed our website with a focus on making it the go-to tool that any member of the public can use to easily contact their MPs and access the latest information on life issues. This has included the recent major update to our Where Do They Stand? e-democracy platform. 6. Our media strategy continues to help shape the mainstream media narrative on life issues Concrete policy change on life issues can only happen in conjunction with wider cultural change outside parliament. A key part of our work to change the wider culture on these issues is ensuring that pro-life messaging is heard in the mainstream media on a regular basis, and is supporting positive changes that are being brought forward in parliament. In 2021, we have further grown our media reach with a big focus on getting positive pro-life messaging regularly featured in the mainstream media. Our focus on mainstream media has been so important because this allows us to reach a large middle ground of people on this issue, with a focus on areas where research shows the majority of people are very open to seeing a positive political and cultural change to our abortion laws. Wherever possible, we have ensured that the spokespeople we use as the voice on these issues in the media are most likely to connect with mainstream audiences. This has included women who have been personally affected by abortion, people with disabilities and medical experts. 7. Our education & training programmes are developing a new generation of pro-lifers We have continued our work to develop a new generation of pro-lifers who are equipped to effectively communicate an evidence-based case for positive change on life issues. This includes our Internship Programme which has been designed to introduce student right-to-lifers and new graduates to the world of the right-to-life movement and its work across the media, politics, education and grassroots engagement.  We have also worked to teach young pro-lifers an understanding of key pro-life issues and the ability to communicate these issues in the media. This has equipped these young people with the necessary skills and techniques to deliver strong interviews, control difficult and hostile questions and to deliver an authentic perspective on life issues.   Together with our wider digital outreach, this has enabled us to educate and develop a new movement of young people who are passionate about achieving positive change on life issues. In 2022, we will be expanding our education and training programmes further. I hope this gives you a good overview of how your support has made a big difference this year. Thank you again for your generosity. Catherine Robinson Right To Life UK

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