Abortion rights campaigners have criticised Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg for amplifying debunked anti-choice propaganda in Parliament that “could increase xenophobia” against Chinese people.

Rees-Mogg and his Conservative colleague Tim Loughton signed their names in support of a document from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) called ‘Complicit: Is UK money contributing to coerced abortion in China?’ last month. The report was launched in Parliament and promoted on Rees-Mogg’s GB News show.

The report claims on its first page that “close to 500 million” forced abortions have been carried out in China under the country’s one-, two- and three-child policies since 1980, with the backing of UK funding through the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

The unevidenced figure appears to originate from a group called Women Without Frontiers headed up by a woman called Reggie Littlejohn, who also claims the World Health Organization is plotting to take over the US government.

On her website, Littlejohn says she has derived the figure from a statement by a Chinese Communist Party official more than a decade ago claiming China’s ‘one child’ policy had resulted in a population of 400 million fewer people than would otherwise have been born. But there has been no suggestion this is as a result of people having abortions, forced or otherwise.

What’s more, even that figure is contested. Researchers in 2015 suggested that “most of the… decline in Chinese fertility since 1980 can be attributed to economic development, not to coercive enforcement of birth limits”.

SPUC is an anti-abortion pressure group that has previously campaigned against same-sex marriage legislation and been found to have spread misinformation about abortion in UK schools.

The report also cites veteran anti-abortion campaigner and crossbench peer David Alton as telling Parliament in 2012 that China had “the highest suicide rate for women anywhere in the world”. Yet the 2011 WHO statistics on female suicides put Chinese female suicides at 7.1 per 100,000 – behind countries including Japan, Belgium, Hungary and India – and, in 2019, the country’s female suicide rate had reportedly dropped to 4.8 per 100,000, significantly lower than the reported US rate of 6.8.

SPUC’s report goes on to accuse the IPPF, a global healthcare provider and advocate of reproductive rights, and the UNFPA, a UN agency aimed at improving reproductive healthcare, of being ‘complicit’ in China’s ‘forced abortion’ practices. Its only citation is a 2001 report from the anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ Population Research Institute that contains no supporting evidence.

The UNFPA denied the claims in the report, saying its work in China “promotes the human rights of individuals and couples to make their own decisions, free of coercion or discrimination” and that it “strongly condemn[s] any violations of women’s sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, wherever they occur”. A UK cross-party report on China from 2002 to observe China’s population and reproductive health policies and UNFPA’s work found “no evidence of coercive FP [family planning], sterilisation or forced abortion practices”.

Neither Rees-Mogg – who has previously been accused of misleading Parliament – nor SPUC responded to openDemocracy’s questions.

Dr Pam Lowe, a senior lecturer in sociology at Aston University and co-author of the book ‘Anti-Abortion Activism in the UK’, told openDemocracy: “Anti-abortion organisations regularly promote misinformation, and this is frequently repeated by parliamentarians opposed to abortion.

“Consequently, I am not surprised to hear that Jacob Rees-Mogg has endorsed an inaccurate report. His opposition to abortion is clear, and, whilst he is entitled to his personal beliefs, this should not mean that he should take at face value information provided by SPUC or any other organisation.

“Moreover, at a time when white Christian nationalism is on the rise amongst those opposed to abortion, it is even more important to not amplify claims that could increase xenophobia or racist abuse.”

Mandu Reid, the leader of the UK’s Women’s Equality Party, added: “It is extremely worrying to see politicians promoting this report from an organisation which is simply dressing up its anti-choice views in faux, disingenuous concern for women. The denial and criminalisation of abortion costs women around the globe their lives and liberty.”