> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The feminists taking on Germany’s anti-abortion movement - URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/the-feminists-taking-on-germanys-anti-abortion-movement/ - Published: 2026-09-18T16:39:03.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-18T16:50:10.000Z - Description: Berlin’s March for Life may be getting smaller, but activists warn it is more politically powerful - Author: Nandini Naira Archer - Tags: Abortion, Germany, AfD, anti-abortion, crisis pregnancy centres When anti-abortion actors march through Berlin, the feminists of the What the Fuck?! alliance do not simply stand on the sidelines. “We’re trying to disrupt the march,” the group told openDemocracy of the annual March for Life, which this year takes place on 19 September. Protesters will line the route, walk alongside marchers and attempt to block their path with deliberately playful and creative demonstrations. “It’s just no fun \[for the anti-abortion actors\] to be constantly shouted at by feminists who stick together and have fun while doing it,” What the Fuck?! said. “It doesn’t destroy their power or their networks, but we can at least ruin this one day for them.” The March for Life is organised by a coalition of 16 groups, while What the Fuck?! is an alliance of antifascist and feminist groups and individual activists across Berlin that has organised against the march and its organisers for more than a decade. While the activists say the number of people taking part in the march has “more than halved”, they warn that the movement behind has built stronger networks, diversified their tactics and increased their political influence. “These people do not just come together on this one day, but are connected beyond it as well,” they said. What the Fuck?! says many of the actors involved in organising the March for Life also campaign against LGBTQ+ rights, and are increasingly connected to broader anti-gender and far-right politics – as well as being internationally networked. This year, Heartbeat International, a major US anti-abortion organisation, is holding a European summit for directors of pregnancy support centres at the same time as the Berlin march. One of the conference’s speakers, Cornelia Kaminski, is the chair of Action Right to Life for All, which helps to organise the March for Life and has worked with Heartbeat International for years, What the Fuck?! said. openDemocracy has investigated the global anti-abortion network before. In 2020, we spent nine months looking into Heartbeat International and US Christian-right organisations, sending undercover reporters posing as women with unwanted pregnancies into affiliated “crisis pregnancy centres” in 18 countries. We found centres that appeared to offer neutral pregnancy support gave women false or misleading health information and used emotional pressure to discourage them from having abortions. The investigation also traced the money and infrastructure helping US anti-abortion organisations expand internationally. What the Fuck?! says some of the tactics developed by the US anti-abortion movement are now being seen in Germany: lobbying lawmakers, mobilising supporters to target decision-makers, using court cases strategically and operating counselling services that activists say obscure their ideological agenda. “They speak of human rights while at the same time seeking to restrict people’s rights,” the alliance said. Germany’s far right has also increasingly embraced anti-gender and anti-abortion politics. The alliance points particularly to the AfD, which earlier this month won the parliamentary election in the east German state of Saxony-Anhalt, and has opposed abortion rights. Alongside demonstrations and civil disobedience, What the Fuck?! researches the organisations involved, maps their relationships and holds public events about the connections between anti-feminist and far-right politics. The work has carried risks. In 2019, more than 50 activists were arrested after taking part in a blockade against the march, according to the group. Many were subsequently charged and convicted. What the Fuck?! says the crackdown contributed to a decline in protest numbers. “You have to stay on top of it,” it says. That means continuing to investigate new developments while explaining how abortion politics connects to a wider anti-feminist backlash. But they argue there is still a place for direct action. Stopping one march does not dismantle an international political network, but confronting anti-abortion activists publicly can deny them an uncontested presence on the streets. For the alliance, research and disruption are complementary rather than competing tactics: one exposes how power is being built, while the other makes that organising harder to carry out unchallenged. Asked what activists elsewhere could learn from their experience, What the Fuck?! turned the question around. “The question should rather be: what can we learn?” they said, pointing to feminist movements in Latin America, Ireland’s successful campaign to overturn its constitutional abortion ban and cross-border solidarity between German and Polish abortion-rights activists. Those networks matter especially as political conditions become less hospitable to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, they argue. Activists need structures that can survive electoral shifts and continue providing practical support when governments turn against them. “We must now try to build and strengthen structures of solidarity that protect people who are threatened,” they said.