The Funding Architecture: Wealth, Influence and Structural Backlash
Since the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (hereinafter ICPD), SRHR has delivered remarkable gains: broader access to contraception, declining maternal mortality, increasing recognition of reproductive autonomy and gender equality embedded in development agendas. But the political‑economic tides have turned. From the rollback of abortion protections in the United States to looming restrictions across Europe and the growing influence of anti‑gender networks, a new phase of resistance has emerged (Amnesty International, 2025). What often is perceived by the public and pushed through media narrative as ha culture war is actually a structural challenge to democracy.
A recent report by the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (EPF), The Next Wave: How Religious Extremism Is Regaining Power, documents how between 2019–2023 some US $1.18 billion was channelled into anti‑rights, anti‑gender initiatives across Europe ( European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual & Reproductive Rights, 2025). And it has its effects: In more than twenty countries, abortion remains penalised or strictly limited; many states still enforce mandatory waiting periods or compulsory counselling and in some contexts there is a regression of the rights to have an abortion. These layered obstacles disproportionately affect marginalised populations migrants, persons with disabilities, LGBTIQ+ individuals and those living in remote regions. What is often left out in this discussion is that the retreat of SRHR is not only ideological it is financially engineered, with objectives going beyond controlling bodies of women, inter, non-binary and trans people. The movement undermining rights is backed by deep‑pocketed networks aligned with fossil‑fuel interests, deregulation agendas and authoritarian consolidation. Investigative reports reveal that at least six billionaire family fortunes (including the Coors, Koch, Uihlein, Scaife, Seid and Bradley families) have poured over US $120 million since 2020 into the U.S.‑based initiative Project 2025, with the aim of restructuring the executive branch, stripping or re-defining many SRHR protections, promoting a “traditional” or conservative vision of family, gender, and government.
Although these donations are US‑dominated, the funding flows upstream into Europe, forming part of the broader architecture that enables anti‑gender movements to operate transnationally. What emerges is a common logic: the preservation of unequal power structures over women’s bodies, labour rights, the environment, and democratic institutions. The same billionaires funding anti‑abortion and anti‑LGBTIQ+ campaigns also finance climate‑denial think‑tanks, support fossil‑fuel interests, and back political projects that concentrate power and endeavour to weaken regulation. Many of the organisations receiving the funding simultaneously oppose climate action, support deregulation of fossil fuel industries, promote “traditionalist” gender norms and foster far‑right political alliances. For example, numerous Project 2025 groups are listed in DeSmog’s Climate Disinformation Database for actively denying anthropogenic climate change. (DeSmog, 2024)
From Moscow to Washington, Brussels to Budapest, money is doing the heavy lifting in reshaping laws, policies, and public norms around gender, sexuality, and reproductive rights.
Noëmi Grütter
Parallel infrastructure – Anti-gender movement becomes institutional
The result: a parallel infrastructure, think‑tanks, service organisations, mass media platforms, “civil society” fronts, funded, networked and working across borders to reshape laws, public opinion and political institutions. The danger is real: The anti‑gender movement is no longer fringe; it is becoming institutional. What makes this architecture especially potent is its synergy with tax avoidance. The result is a loop where wealth is amassed, shielded from taxation, and then deployed to shape ideological, social and political outcomes undermining both human rights and public goods. According to Amnesty International, extreme wealth concentration is “undermining democracy and economic stability” and placing the burden of public investment for people and planet onto the many rather than the few. (Amnesty International, 2025)
Weaker healthcare systems, underfunded public institutions and fragmented social protections create the terrain upon which anti‑gender and reactionary projects thrive. In this loop wealth concentrates, public accountability shrinks, rights are hollowed out. And where will be the democracy left in this?
Why It Matters: SRHR, Climate and Democracy Interlinked
By financing culture‑wars, anti‑gender, anti‑LGBTIQ+, anti‑abortion, these actors also divert attention and resistance from their core interests: extraction, deregulation, tax avoidance and weakening of public accountability. Experts argue this is not accidental: by stirring moral panic around gender, sexuality and reproductive autonomy, these networks distract from structural issues like climate breakdown or wealth inequality. Also if we zoom in on trans-rights as part of SRHR, the fossil fuel industry per example, has a real interest in funding panic over trans people. As it is distracting people from the real risk: climate change.
In this way, anti‑gender activism becomes a tactic of social control: fragmenting progressive alliances, undermining trust in institutions and concentrating power.
The erosion of reproductive rights is a warning sign for democratic health. When access to abortion is restricted, environmental regulations weakened and civic oversight undermined, the same dynamics of power are at work. Vulnerability to climate change, exclusion from reproductive care and marginalisation from democratic participation intertwine. Strengthening SRHR is therefore a linchpin not just for health, but for resilience in the face of ecological collapse, inequality and democratic decline.
Defending Rights, Building Resilience
The rise of anti‑gender networks backed by billionaire money is at the same time a human‑rights crisis, an ecological crisis and a democratic crisis. If we are to respond, this is what we must demand: Expose and regulate the funding architecture of anti‑gender movements: make public and philanthropic flows transparent, counter dark money and build alliances across civil society, media and health systems to implement this.
A Sharp Call to Action
In this moment of global crisis, the stakes could not be higher: when ultra‑wealthy elites bankroll movements that erode bodily autonomy, weaken institutions and delay climate action, our fight for reproductive rights becomes indistinguishable from our fight for democracy, economic justice and a livable planet. The next chapter will be decided by whether we hold power to account, demand transparency, reclaim public purpose and work in cross-mouvement approaches. If we lose this moment, the consequences will ripple far beyond abortion access. But if we win it, we will reclaim agency not just over our bodies, but over the future itself.
References
Amnesty International. (2025). Europe: Existing barriers to abortion access compounded by alarming attempts to roll back reproductive rights. [online] 6 November. Available at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/11/europe-existing-barriers-to-abortion-access-compounded-by-alarming-attempts-to-roll-back-reproductive-rights/ [Accessed 13 November 2025].
Amnesty International. (2025). Joint letter: Tax the super-rich for a green and just future for everyone (Index No. IOR 30/9070/2025). [online] 24 February. Available at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/IOR3090702025ENGLISH.pdf [Accessed 13 November 2025].
European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual & Reproductive Rights. (2025). The Next Wave: How Religious Extremism Is Regaining Power. [online] 25 September. Available at: https://www.epfweb.org/node/1147 [Accessed 13 November 2025].
DeSmog. (2024, August 14). 6 Billionaire Fortunes Bankrolling Project 2025. DeSmog. [online] Available at: https://www.desmog.com/2024/08/14/project-2025-billionaire-donor-heritage-foundation-donald-trump-jd-vance-charles-koch-peter-coors/ [Accessed 13 November 2025].
