Anti-abortion group in tampon tax row removes death penalty comparison

A charity that has been given £250,000 from the government’s so-called tampon tax fund has scrubbed language describing abortion after rape as a “death penalty” from its website after being challenged on it.

The Life charity has now said it will do a full review of its website to remove offensive language, after the Guardian pointed out that the same article referred to abortion in cases of disability as a “death sentence”.

Life, which campaigns against abortion, was among 70 organisations working with women and girls to receive funding from the £12m tampon tax fund set up by George Osborne.

The £250,000 funding will go into housing and counselling services run by Life for homeless pregnant women in west London, the government announced. But the decision to award Life funding provoked concern among some women’s groups.

On Monday, Life’s education director Anne Scanlan was challenged on the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about a piece on the charity’s website in which abortion after rape was described as a “death penalty”.

Ann Furedi, of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, brought up the phrasing and said: “You cannot be saying on one hand that you provide an unbiased, non-judgemental approach to dealing with women when this is the ideological motivation of your organisation.”

Scanlan responded: “I cannot believe we use that terminology at all, we would absolutely never use that kind of language face to face when dealing with women.”

The article was swiftly edited on Monday morning to remove the description. However, the same article still referred to abortion in cases of disability as a “death sentence”.

When the Guardian pointed this out, Scanlan said the language was inappropriate and offensive, and pledged to review all content on the website. “Where inappropriate language was used, we will amend it or remove it,” she said.

“We offer help and support to women. We certainly don’t want anything on the website that’s offensive,” Scanlan said. “We are not going to shy away from it: we are an anti-abortion organisation. But I was genuinely surprised to find out that language was being used on our website.”

Scanlan said she did not know how long the article had been online but believed it was written before she arrived at Life six years ago and had slipped through the net when the website was revamped last year. “Unfortunately a whole swathe of briefing papers have been moved from the old website without being adequately checked,” she said.

She denied that the group’s opposition to abortion made it unsuitable to receive the tampon tax funding. “We never, ever try to push our views onto anybody else,” she said, adding Life provides “non-directive counselling” that avoids recommending any particular course of action. “When it comes to providing support for women, we’re not debating the issue: we are just providing support,” she added.

Furedi told the Guardian she did not believe it was possible to separate Life’s opposition to abortion from the advice it provides to women. “Organisations are led by their values, and that runs through advocacy and campaigning, but it also runs through the way services are delivered,” she said, adding: “What they are saying is abortion has, as far as they are concerned, no place in the management of problem pregnancy.”

The government’s decision to provide funding to an anti-abortion organisation was a “slap in the face” to public opinion, which is increasingly supportive of choice, Furedi said, pointing out that the £250,000 was among the largest grants handed out: “Every woman who’s buying sanitary protection is being caused to effectively make a donation [to Life]”. The charity has a turnover of £3.6m a year.

A spokesperson for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which determines how the tampon tax fund is distributed, said the money is being spent to “help improve the lives of disadvantaged women and girls, including those who have been affected by violence,” adding: “Life has been awarded £250,000 to fund a specific project in west London that will help homeless and other at risk women who are pregnant by providing housing, counselling and life skills training.”

The government declined to comment on whether it had any concerns about providing significant funding to an avowedly pro-life organisation.

Anti-abortion group in tampon tax row removes death penalty comparison

Anger as tampon tax is used to help fund anti-abortion group

A new row has broken out over the so-called tampon tax after it emerged that a quarter of a million pounds from a controversial levy on women’s sanitary products is to be given to an anti-abortion organisation.

Under pressure from campaigners after failing to honour a pledge to scrap the 5% VAT on sanitary products, former chancellor George Osborne said that more than £10m a year would be redistributed from the tax receipts to women’s charities.

But there was consternation on Saturday night among women’s groups and politicians who had campaigned on the issue after it emerged that £250,000 of that money is going to Life, a charity that campaigns against abortion and has been at the centre of controversy over the information provided by a network of unregulated pregnancy counselling centres.

A spokesperson for the End Violence Against Women Coalition said: “We are surprised to see that Life is the recipient of a very significant tampon tax grant. The government set out clearly that this money would be spent in ways that would address women’s specific needs and inequalities. It is hard to understand how a service offering counselling based on the fundamental premise that abortion is wrong, to vulnerable women, can do that.”

The government announced last Friday that 70 organisations across the country would share £12m from the tampon-tax fund, which it said would improve the lives of disadvantaged women and girls across the country.

Rob Wilson, the minister for civil society, gave details of the funding on a visit to the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which is to receive £200,000 to help increase its casework support service for women who are being stalked.

Four other charities, ranging from the Women’s Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre Cornwall, which is getting £179,157, to Black Country Women’s Aid (£240,401), were highlighted in a press notice from the Department for Culture, Media & Sport.

No mention was made of Life, but the organisation appears on a separate long list, which says it will receive £250,000 for “housing, practical help, counselling, emotional support and life skills training for young pregnant women who are homeless”. There has been surprise not just at the award, but at its size: it is one of the largest donations on the list.

Life describes itself as unique, combining “pro-life advocacy and education work with nationwide services providing positive alternatives to abortion”. It served notice last year of plans to increase its online presence to compete with established service providers such as Marie Stopes and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS).

Among others who criticised the grant was Labour MP Paula Sherriff, whose successful amendment to last year’s budget led to the government pledging to abolish the tax.

“It will seem bitterly ironic to many women if we are taxed for our biology, only for the government to hand over that money to organisations that don’t even believe we should have control over our own bodies, especially when so many are left without basic sanitary protection,” she said.

“Just this Thursday, I led a Commons debate on period poverty and discussed terrible cases like the homeless women who can’t afford tampons and whose health is at risk, the girls in Leeds who play truant during their periods and a charity that provides free sanitary products to Africa now getting requests from schools in Britain because so many female pupils cannot afford them.

“Tackling these issues would surely be a better use of the tampon tax fund. The minister agreed on Thursday to look at funding for sanitary protection in schools and homeless shelters, and I will be asking the government to review their allocation of the tampon tax fund urgently.”

There was also criticism from the Women’s Equality Party. Its leader, Sophie Walker, said: “We consider any restriction on women’s reproductive rights as violence against us and thus it was a shock to learn the government has used the tampon tax fund to support a charity whose mission is anti-choice and aims to ‘make abortion a thing of the past’.

“While we appreciate the work Life does to support homeless pregnant women and care for children with life-limiting or terminal illnesses, we are very disappointed to see the allocation of such significant funds to this one charity while many others struggle, particularly those supporting black and minority ethnic women and disabled women who experience some of the highest rates of violence against them and yet are consistently at the bottom of the list for funding.

The government had originally faced a potential rebellion over the issue, after an amendment tabled by Sherriff won the backing of Eurosceptics keen to assert Britain’s power to set its own tax rates. Osborne had originally pledged to remove the tampon tax in November 2015, but was unable to do so due to regulations applied by the European Commission that prevented member states from doing so.

The government said on Friday that it is committed to continuing the fund until EU rules allow a zero rate of VAT to be applied to women’s sanitary products and that a decision will be made on the future of the Fund once this has been achieved.

Wilson said at the launch of the fund: “From Cornwall to Dundee, the tampon tax fund continues to benefit organisations in every corner of the UK working to improve the lives of disadvantaged women and girls, including those who’ve been affected by violence.

“This fund is helping to improve lives, supporting our ambition to create a fairer, shared society for everyone. I’m glad that so many worthwhile organisations will benefit from this money.”

A spokesperson for Life said: “We believe that our support services for women are not a luxury but are essential for them to have the space to look at options for continuing their pregnancies with support.”

Anger as tampon tax is used to help fund anti-abortion group