Marie Stopes abortion charity – which ’empowers women to take control of their futures’ – accepted millions of pounds in funding from US porn baron

  •  Marie Stopes International (MSI) has received more than £7.5million from sex-toy salesman Phil Harvey CEO of the Adam & Eve porn company
  • Critics have accused the charity of betraying its stated aim of ’empowering women and girls to take control of their futures’
  • Adam & Eve gives away 25 per cent of its profits through Mr Harvey’s charitable foundation, DKT International

A controversial abortion charity has accepted millions of pounds of funding from a pornography tycoon, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Marie Stopes International (MSI) has received more than £7.5million from sex-toy salesman Phil Harvey, prompting critics to accuse the charity of betraying its stated aim of ’empowering women and girls to take control of their futures’.

Mr Harvey’s business, Adam & Eve, was established as a mailorder firm in 1971 and it has become one of America’s leading suppliers of erotica, with £60million of adult film and sex-toy sales last year.

Adam & Eve gives away 25 per cent of its profits through Mr Harvey’s charitable foundation, DKT International.

According to accounts seen by this newspaper, this includes at least £7.5million in cash and supplies to MSI since 1995.

Philip Harvey, the president of Adam & Eve porn company has given at least £7.5million in cash and supplies to MSI since 1995

Philip Harvey, the president of Adam & Eve porn company has given at least £7.5million in cash and supplies to MSI since 1995

Mr Harvey, 82, is a trustee of MSI, but the charity makes barely any mention of him on its website.

London-based MSI, which arranged about five million abortions last year and received £48million of British foreign aid funding, was recently reprimanded by the Charity Commission after chief executive Simon Cooke had his pay doubled to £434,000.

The charity was established by British doctor Tim Black after he saved the Marie Stopes abortion clinic in London from bankruptcy.

He studied at University of North Carolina with Mr Harvey in the late 1960s and they went into business selling condoms through the post, which was illegal at the time.

In 1986, Mr Harvey was charged with distributing obscene material.

The Marie Stopes International clinic in Leeds. Mr Harvey, 82, is a trustee of MSI, but the charity makes barely any mention of him on its website

The Marie Stopes International clinic in Leeds. Mr Harvey, 82, is a trustee of MSI, but the charity makes barely any mention of him on its website

After an eight-year legal battle, he cleared his name and successfully sued the government.

Meanwhile, Dr Black – the pioneer of the so-called ‘lunchtime abortion’ – was building MSI into an organisation that now operates in 37 countries.

Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, which opposes abortions, said: ‘Serious questions need to be asked about why MSI, an organisation which says it is dedicated to empowering women, has received millions in funding from an industry that achieves the opposite.’

MSI said: ‘Phil Harvey has spent his life defending sexual and reproductive health and rights, and has played a significant role in expanding access for women across the world. We are proud that he continues to contribute to the organisation.’

Mr Harvey did not respond to requests for a comment.

1920s libel battle behind the story

The scale of the financial links between a porn baron and Marie Stopes International was unearthed by the grandson of a man involved in a high-profile legal fight with the birth control pioneer almost a century ago.

While researching Exterminating Poverty, a book about the libel battle between Dr Halliday Sutherland and Dr Stopes, Mark Sutherland examined MSI’s accounts in detail.

‘I wonder whether donors to MSI, a charitable organisation which promotes itself on ’empowering women and girls to take control of their futures’, realise it is funded from proceeds from the adult industry and pornography,’ Mr Sutherland said.

Dr Sutherland was sued by Dr Stopes in 1923 after describing her call for laws to compulsorily sterilise those she considered ‘unfit for parenthood’ as a ‘monstrous experiment’.

Judges rejected Stopes’s claim and ruled she was a eugenicist. ‘It staggers me that there is a charity named after this woman given her abhorrent views,’ Mr Sutherland said.

MSI said: ‘Our connection to Marie Stopes the woman lies in a historic building in Central London – the first family planning clinic in the UK.

Our founders chose to use her name in recognition of her pioneering work bringing contraception to women in the UK.’

Source: dailymail.co.uk