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What is CARE, the anti-abortion lobby group that launched Kate Forbes’s political career? [1]

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Date: 2023-03

SNP leadership contender Kate Forbes is facing questions about her position on abortion following revelations that an anti-abortion Christian lobby group sponsored her early political career.

openDemocracy revealed this week that Forbes’s first job in the Scottish Parliament had been funded by Christian Action, Research and Education (CARE), known for its opposition to abortion, sex education and LGBTIQ+ rights.

The findings have put a spotlight on the group, which claims it has placed more than 300 interns trained to take a “biblical approach” to political issues into MPs offices.

Last year, our analysis found more than 20 MPs had taken interns since 2010 from CARE’s Leadership Programme, which offers 11-month placements in Westminster – and all-access Commons passes – to recent university graduates.

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The group has said its internship scheme puts participants in “real positions of responsibility”, and boasts that former interns have gone on to become cabinet ministers and senior civil servants. Tory MP Stephen Crabb, an alumni of the scheme, credits it with giving him “a grounding of the Commons, politically”.

Secular and abortion rights campaigners have raised concerns about the influence and access to power that it grants the group. Kerry Abel, chair of Abortion Rights UK, told openDemocracy she believed the organisation was “actively trying to change our law on abortion in an ideological way that ignores evidence-based health advice and access needs for women”.

She added: “These organisations should not have an undue hold on our democracy and a full independent investigation should be held as to who is trying to court our elected representatives.”

CARE insists that graduates on the programme “are neither asked nor permitted to lobby on [its] behalf”.

Anti-abortion campaigning

CARE, which has existed since 1983, has repeatedly lobbied for restrictions to abortion rights in the UK.

Last year, the group’s media adviser told openDemocracy it would “absolutely” seek to replicate the US anti-abortion movement, which has claimed the Supreme Court’s decision to repeal abortion rights in July 2022 as a victory.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/christian-action-research-education-anti-abortion-lobby/

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