Abortion industry funded by porn industry

13 May 2020

This week, the Daily Mail reported that controversial abortion giant Marie Stopes International had accepted millions of pounds of funding from Phil Harvey, president of Adam & Eve pornography company.

According the the Daily Mail, Marie Stopes International (MSI) – which claims to “empower women and girls to take control of their futures” – has received some £7.5 million in cash and supplies since 1995. Mr Harvey is a trustee of MSI, although there is no obvious mention of him on the abortion provider’s website.

Mr Harvey’s sex and pornography business made some £60 million last year in sales of adult films and erotica. Adam & Eve gives away 25% of its profits through Mr Harvey’s charitable foundation, DKT International, which describes itself as “one of the world’s largest providers of family planning, HIV/AIDS prevention and safe abortion products and services” and says it has helped to ‘avert’ 8 million pregnancies.

Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, commented: “Serious questions need to be asked about why MSI, an organisation which says it is dedicated to empowering women, has received millions in funding from an industry that achieves the opposite.”

NHS funded abortions

However, the majority of abortions carried out by MSI are funded by the NHS: the MSI website boasts that over 95% of its abortions are NHS-funded.

Last year, the abortion giant came under fire alongside the government Department for International Development (DfID) after it came to light that the DfID had increased its contributions to MSI by over 5000% in the last 12 years. This made the government department the single biggest donor to the abortion provider.

The ‘charitable giving’ of the porn industry

Adam & Eve is not the only sex and pornography company that has hit the headlines in recent weeks. In March, Pornhub announced that it would be making its premium option free worldwide during the coronavirus lockdown.

The company added that it would also be donating protective equipment to New York medics and first responders, giving some €50,000 to various European organisations to help purchase additional PPE as well as $25,000 to US-based Sex Workers Outreach Project to support sex workers “whose lives and livelihoods have been affected by the pandemic.”

The disturbing reality of the porn industry

However, these are PR stunts to distract the public from the many disturbing realities of the porn industry. In 2019, Pornhub reported 42 billion visits to its site – over 80,000 visits per minute.

Pornhub itself came under scrutiny when one of its content providers became the subject of an FBI investigation. Four people working for the production company were charged with coaxing women into making pornographic films under false pretences.

The Internet Watch Foundation in the UK – an organisation that monitors online sexual abuse – also told the BBC that between 2017 and 2019, it had found 118 instances of child sexual abuse and child rape videos on Pornhub.

Earlier this year, Parliament also discussed the dangerous effects of internet pornography on women after several women were murdered by men who claimed the women had consented to sado-masochism.

Calls for a credit card freeze on porn

Last week, a group of international campaigners and campaign groups called on major credit card companies to block payments to pornographic sites in an effort to tackle sexual exploitation.

Signatories of the letter include US group National Center on Sexual Exploitation as well as other faith-based women and child rights’ advocacy groups. The letter states that it is impossible to “judge or verify consent in any videos on their site, let alone live webcam videos” which “inherently makes pornography websites a target for sex traffickers, child abusers, and others sharing predatory nonconsensual videos.”

A recent survey found that 94% of children had been exposed to some sort of porn by the age of 14. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has also published a study on British teenagers’ viewing habits of online pornography, finding that “pornography is currently one click away from children of all ages in the UK.”

Carys Moseley commented on the need for a Christian response: “Given the amount of information there is as to how damaging pornography is for adults – the negative effect on marriage, relationships, sexuality and families, and the proven link with human trafficking and prostitution – there is every reason to formulate a comprehensive Christian response. The challenge is out there for everyone now.”

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