It’s just over five years to the day since I arrived at a bland conference hall in Holborn, central London, to take part in the Clarkson Academy – a two-day training course run by the extreme anti-abortion group Centre for Bio-Ethical Research UK (CBR UK).
The training aimed to “level up” the fight against abortion, with sessions that focused on how to run anti-abortion protests, including outside clinics. These included one called “social reform and graphic images” – which focused on the need to use distressing abortion imagery during protests in order to influence change – and another titled “#StopStella and cultural engagement”, which referred to the pro-choice Labour MP Stella Creasy.
There was also a “display briefing”, after which the attendees headed to a protest to put into practice what they had just learned. I did not attend this session or the protest, which took place on the second day of the academy. I was there undercover on day one to report for openDemocracy and saw firsthand how the group believes abortion is linked to Satanism.
