A US anti-abortion group with links to Donald Trump and the American evangelical right spent millions of dollars on legal action in the UK and across Europe last year, The National can reveal.
Newly published financial filings submitted to US tax authorities show the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) channelled more than $6 million into its European operations in 2025, including its UK arm.
The disclosures include more than $3.2m earmarked for what the organisation describes as “human rights legal work” in Europe.
This marks a significant increase in spending on legal work compared with the previous year, when ADF reported just over $2m in European expenditure, marking a rise of more than $1m in a single year.
Founded in 1993, ADF is one of the major forces that helped push for the US Supreme Court’s controversial decision to overturn Roe v Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion in the US.
The organisation has major links to senior American politicians, including the US President, and acts as a key policy advisor on conservative and religious issues. Last year, the New York Times also reported that ADF supplied the Trump administration with attack lines casting the UK as hostile to free speech.
Its UK offshoot, ADF International, supports anti-abortion protests across the UK and recently lobbied against Scotland’s proposed assisted dying law and efforts to decriminalise abortion.
It also has links to Reform UK, with the group helping to organise Nigel Farage’s testimony before US Congress last year, and brokering meetings for him with senior Trump administration officials.
While the new figures don’t break down spending country by country, meaning it is not possible to determine how much of the over £6m was specifically allocated to the group’s UK arm, The National previously revealed it received £1,409,342 in 2025 in total.
This was an increase of more than £150,000 on the previous year and a 254.1% increase since 2022.
This US funding boost comes as ADF’s UK arm has also been funding legal challenges linked to Scotland’s abortion buffer zones legislation, as well as representing individuals facing prosecution over protests outside abortion clinics in England as well.
For example, 75-year-old Rose Docherty was supported by ADF after becoming the first person charged under Scotland’s abortion clinic buffer zones act for holding up a placard outside the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) twice last year.
The Crown Office dropped her case in April.
The organisation have also provided legal support to other anti-abortion protesters across the UK including Adam Smith-Connor, whose case was name-checked by US vice president JD Vance during a much condemned speech in which he took aim at the Scottish Government.
The Scottish Greens said that what is occurring in the US in the past few years “shows how vital” protecting abortion rights is in Scotland.
“This week marks four years since the United States overturned Roe vs Wade,” the party’s MSP Kayleigh Kinross-O’Neill said.
“Everything that has happened since then – like women travelling out of state for treatment or contraception, women dying from highly treatable causes, even one extreme case of a woman being kept artificially alive on life support because she was not able to terminate a pregnancy that resulted in the loss of her own life, shows how vital it is that we protect and strengthen both abortion rights and women's health care here in Scotland.
"We must ensure that nobody is ever put in a dangerous, unthinkable position when it comes to their own body.”
She added: “These anti-choice groups in the US must never be allowed to influence the legislation that has been created in our country. Every person globally deserves the right to access safe medical treatment, including abortion, without judgment, legal action or a risk to their lives. The Scottish Greens will always fight to ensure this is the case in Scotland and advocate for the same level of care to be extended everywhere else.”
An ADF International spokesman, meanwhile, said: “ADF International is a global Christian legal advocacy organisation that defends fundamental freedoms, including in the UK where we have had an office for years.
“All of our work is privately funded, and we fully comply with all rules set out by the various regulators of the countries we are based in, including the UK.
“We have more than 750,000 supporters worldwide and our supporters give to back our advocacy efforts in defence of fundamental freedoms across the world. We receive donations from supporters in more than 100 countries, including the UK.
“None of our clients have engaged in protests outside abortion facilities. They have merely silently prayed or offered consensual conversation.
“The fact that they have been charged, prosecuted and in two cases criminally convicted for doing so demonstrates that ‘buffer zone’ censorship is without a doubt one of the most egregious forms of censorship in the UK today. As a free speech organisation, we are committed to standing by our clients and fighting the UK’s censorship crisis.”
