Abortion and the patriarchal order: Alliances in the right-wing rollback

F undis were once those gray mice with long skirts and braided pigtails, the men in too-tight shirts with crosses around their necks. But the religious right has long since upgraded, operates digitally and transnationally, and is well financed and networked. The alliances range from corona deniers to fraternity members, from Gloria Fürstin von Thurn und Taxis to Donald Trump to the Kremlin and the AfD. Your goal: the right rollback.

How successful hybrid warfare is was shown in 2025 by the failed election of Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf as Federal Constitutional Judge. CitizenGO, a petition platform against abortion rights, played a key role in the campaign against the legal scholar. The “Pro-Life” organization based in Spain is financed by conservative organizations from the USA and the Kremlin.

In Berlin, Cologne and Zurich this weekend, Christian fundamentalists and extreme right-wing extremists are demonstrating against the right to abortion in the so-called March for Life. For the first time, a two-day conference of radical abortion opponents is taking place in Berlin. The organizer is Heartbeat International, a global anti-abortion organization from the USA that is close to the MAGA movement. Since 2019, the Christian right in the US has been spending $22 million annually on European organizations that specifically undermine women's rights.

The boundaries to the political right are fluid. Around 80 percent of evangelical Christians in the USA voted for Donald Trump in 2016. After his election victory, MAGA fans celebrated on social media with the rallying cry “Your body, my choice,” a cynical reversal of the feminist slogan “My body, my choice.”

In this country, the AfD appoints prominent anti-choice actors as experts in the Bundestag's legal committee and is putting pressure on people to exclude advice centers such as Pro Familia from statutory pregnancy conflict advice. AfD officials have been taking part in the March for Life for years.

The fact that the number of demo participants is constantly falling is no reason to calm down. The movement has simply found a new space in which it can reach more people: social media.

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Evangelical Christian influencers like Leonard Jäger (@ketzerderneuzeit, 338,000 followers) are going viral with conspiracy stories, evangelical-fundamentalist and right-wing populist content. Jäger is well connected, shakes hands with Donald Trump and poses with Alice Weidel.

The Christfluencer Jasmin Friesen (@liebezurbibel, 96,000 followers), a close friend of Jäger, posts on Instagram: “The subordination of women does not want to imprison or oppress us, but rather give us real life.”

Friesen is convinced that it is not climate protection that can save the world, but only Jesus. Every year she calls for the March for Life, and before the federal election she made an implicit election recommendation for the AfD.

The demand of Christian fundamentalists for a ban on abortion is just the tip of the spear. The real plan behind this is to use the control of female bodies to establish a right-wing, patriarchal, backward-looking order in which minorities are oppressed and conspiracy narratives become socially acceptable. Anyone who wants to defend democracy must start where it is under attack: with the right to physical self-determination.