The Virgin Mary features heavily in anti-abortion activism – and many Catholics are worried

By Sarah-Jane Page, Associate Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham
Pam Lowe, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Aston University

If you’ve ever come across an anti-abortion protest, particularly outside of a clinic, you may have been struck by the use of the Virgin Mary. Images of Mary and other religious signs and symbols are frequently used in anti-abortion activism in Britain, as in other countries*.

At one level this is understandable because, as our research has shown, anti-abortion activists in the UK are overwhelmingly highly religious, with most aligned with conservative forms of…

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