March for Life in Berlin: Export banger Anti-Choice

Berlin, one weekend, two events by radical opponents of abortion. Coincidence or hybrid warfare? Pure coincidence, ask Heartbeat International, organizer of the upcoming anti-choice conference in Berlin. Annika Brockschmidt suspects the opposite: “It would be a massive mistake to believe that radical abortion opponents are only active in the USA and that the whole thing has nothing to do with us here,” warns the expert on the Christian right in the USA.

Heartbeat International's “Summit Meeting of Heads of European Pregnancy Support Facilities” will take place for the first time in Berlin this weekend. At the same time, Christian fundamentalists, ultra-conservative church representatives and the extreme right will gather on Saturday in Berlin as well as in Cologne and Zurich to demonstrate against the right to abortion at the “March for Life”.

The march in Germany is organized by the Federal Association for Life Rights. As in previous years, the “What the Fuck?!” alliance is mobilizing in Berlin. and the Alliance for Sexual Self-Determination for counter-demonstrations. Counter-demonstrations have also been announced in Cologne and Zurich.

Heartbeat International is a US-based, global anti-abortion organization that is close to the MAGA movement. Their vision: “A world where every new life is welcome and children grow up in strong families according to God’s plan, so that abortion is unthinkable.” This year's summit will discuss topics such as client care, fundraising and "spiritual encouragement." “Ultimately it’s about supporting women in the best possible way,” says a spokeswoman for taz.

Ella Nowak from the alliance “What the Fuck?!” contradicts this representation: “The conference provides a platform for a deeply dangerous ideology and is openly directed against the principle of physical self-determination,” said the activist.

Heartbeat International says it has 4,000 affiliated centers in over 100 countries. The organization operates the world's largest network of pregnancy conflict counseling centers. These are centers that claim to provide neutral advice about abortion. However, research shows that false or misleading information is spread in the consultations, such as that abortions cause mental illness or cancer.

“The counseling has only one goal from the outset,” says Annika Brockschmidt: “To get the pregnant woman to decide against the abortion.” The conference in Berlin once again made clear what experts and activists have been warning about for years: that radical abortion opponents are networked worldwide.

Heartbeat International holds its summits every two years at a different location “to maximize the number of participants and connect with as many people as possible,” said the spokeswoman. Since 2019, the Christian right in the US has been spending $22 million a year on European organizations that specifically undermine women's rights.

Lobby organizations such as Heartbeat International and Alliance Defending Freedom support German abortion opponents with knowledge, experience and money. Many US organizations also have branches in Europe and Germany.

“The movement here is looking with interest to the USA for inspiration,” says Brockschmidt. The conditions there for unwanted pregnant women have worsened since the landmark Roe v. ruling was overturned. Wade on access to abortions increasing.

And the “wish list” of radical abortion opponents in the USA is long: They are calling for a ban on the shipping of abortion products, want to revoke the approval of abortion drugs and restrict access to telemedicine. Abortion should be considered murder and can even be punished with the death penalty. In addition, divorce law should be made more difficult, state support for abstinence should be expanded and access to contraceptives and sex education should be restricted, said Brockschmidt.

Meanwhile, the number of participants in marches in this country has been stagnating for several years. In 2025, around 1,200 so-called pro-life activists demonstrated in Cologne, and just over 2,000 in Berlin - as few as in 2004. Nevertheless, the movement is enormously influential, as was most recently shown in 2025 by the failed election of Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf as Federal Constitutional Judge.

In addition to right-wing populist media, CitizenGO, a petition platform against abortion and women's rights, played a key role in the campaign against her. The conservative pro-life organization based in Spain is funded by conservative organizations in the USA and the Kremlin.

“The transnational networking of this movement also shows the close links between the extreme political right and fundamentalist Christian milieus,” says Brockschmidt. “We’ve been seeing this in Germany for a long time.” Christfluencers like Leonard Jäger (@KetzerderNeuzeit, 338,000 followers) stage themselves shaking hands with Donald Trump and posing with AfD MPs like Alice Weidel. AfD officials have been taking part in the March for Life for years, such as Beatrix von Storch and Franz Schmid.

In addition, the AfD appoints prominent anti-choice actors as experts in the Bundestag's legal committee and puts pressure on them to exclude advice centers such as Pro Familia from statutory pregnancy conflict advice. The regional association in Saxony-Anhalt is calling for pregnant women to be shown ultrasound images of the embryo during conflict consultations in order to prevent them from having an abortion.

How can the movement be counteracted? “It is particularly important to clarify that this movement is by no means dedicated to ‘child protection’ or ‘life protection’, as it claims, but rather that it is about patriarchal control of pregnant women,” says Brockschmidt. It is important to clarify what these people stand for: “Pro forced birth”, not “pro life”.