Team ASN
Staff
Digital Projects Officer Abbie Jones-Walters joined ASN in March 2024. She works alongside the Fundraising and Communications manager on all things digital and data. Abbie is a communications and fundraising professional who has worked primarily in Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence, and Older People’s charities. Outside of ASN she is a grassroots activist, working with intersectional feminist causes, Human Rights campaigns and LGBTQIA+ Rights groups. She is a writer who runs writing workshops for survivors, has a puppy, and plays in a band. She is from Yorkshire but lives in Cornwall.
Service Manager Annie Tidbury joined ASN in April 2023. She oversees and supports our frontline services including the helpline, accommodation team, translation team and hosting team. Annie’s background is in advocacy and before joining ASN she worked at a disability rights organisation and a rape crisis centre. She spends a lot of time thinking about how we can do radical, transformative work within oppressive systems. When she’s not working she can be found swimming, gaming or volunteering with a local Rainbows group.
Senior Helpline Coordinator Ciara McHugh joined ASN in March 2024. She works alongside the Service Manager to provide coordination and day to day support for the helpline team and other related services. Ciara qualified as a Midwife in 2013 and since then has worked in abortion care in both the UK and overseas. She is passionate about working in reproductive health and campaigning for health equality and human rights. She is based in Northern Ireland.
Fundraising and Communications Manager Dani Anderson joined ASN in June 2021. She looks after ASN’s fundraising activities, including working with our wonderful volunteers on individual giving, community fundraising, and trusts and foundations. She lives in Glasgow, and is currently on maternity leave.
Fundraising and Communications Manager (maternity cover) Ellie Jones is an experienced fundraiser having worked in several charities; she has strengths in Mid-value and Major Donor fundraising. Ellie has a masters degree in Social Anthropology. Outside of work Ellie represents Great Britain in Tag Rugby, and is an ultra-marathon runner.
Volunteer and Admin Assistant Julia Pata joined ASN in April 2023. She is a human rights activist who has worked on reproductive rights campaigns in Poland and the UK. Julia is currently a Youth Director on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International UK and volunteers with grassroots organisations in Poland. At ASN, she supports our volunteer teams and provides support across the organisation to help keep everything running smoothly.
Senior Helpline Coordinator Lucy Wilkinson joined ASN in July 2023. She works alongside the Service Manager to provide coordination and day to day support for the helpline team and other related services. Lucy’s background is in the charity, public and education sectors including child protection and child disability social work. Outside of ASN she enjoys practicing Iyengar yoga, hiking and volunteering in a charity shop once a week.
Board of Trustees
Alex Irving‘s background is in domestic abuse work including as a service manager and national development lead, with a particular interest in meetings the needs of marginalised communities. Alex observed the need for non-biased reproductive education whilst working with disabled mothers who were facing care proceedings. Abortion rights form a wider part of their politics, including the intersections of violence against women and girls & the need for abortions to be accessible for all.
Bethan Cansfield has 15 years’ experience in campaigning, advocacy, policy and grant making on gender justice, including abortion rights. She currently is a consultant. This includes supporting organisations to mobilise more and better funding to feminist movements. Prior to this, she worked for the Sigrid Rausing Trust, where she led the Women’s Rights Programme’s grant making, including increasing support for groups campaigning and advocating for abortion rights. She has also worked for Womankind Worldwide, Oxfam International and Amnesty International UK.
Clarisa Regede is a human rights policy specialist with 9 years’ experience of working on diverse humanitarian issues in multi-cultural contexts. She is currently a policy consultant working with grassroots organisations and movements in the global south and europe building their capacity in solving sexual reproductive and health community problems through efficient grant processes, prudent evidence building, deliberate stakeholder engagement and innovation. She focuses on global policy analysis work in innovative finance, non-profit management, philanthropy, innovation, design thinking, agile leadership, agile fundraising, and strategy development. She has served as an adviser on meaningful youth engagement initiatives for young people globally working with philanthropies and donors, that include Investment Fund Foundation and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Clarisa’s has a Master of Science in Public Policy and Management from SOAS University of London and she is an alumni of the prestigious Young African Leaders Initiative program, the Mandela Washington Fellowship 2021.
Emma Campbell is a Research Associate in Social Studies at Ulster University on the cross-border HEA-funded North/South Reproductive Citizenship project (2022-Present). Her PhD was on utilising art, primarily photography and performance, as a sexy & magical tool for abortion rights along with Alliance for Choice (of which she is a co- convenor) and a member of Array Collective.
Emma McCarthy has worked in migration and displacement for over 12 years, both in the UK and internationally. Having gained initial experience in immigration detention work with Amnesty International Australia, she has worked operationally with INGOs including UNHCR Greece and the Australian & British Red Cross – where she currently manages refugee support operations in Scotland. She has a Masters in both International Development and Public Health, and frontline casework experience in SGBV and perinatal casework with asylum-seeking and refugee women.
Hannah Tipple has been an abortion activist for nearly 13 years. From 2010 to 2023 she had a number of roles at ASN, including over a decade on the helpline. She’s recently joined Abortion Network Amsterdam’s helpline. In the odd moments when she’s not abortioneering, she’s gained expertise in finance, project management, and process design.
Janet O’Sullivan has been a pro-choice activist from 1992 when the story of the X case broke in Ireland. Her activism led to her to be involved in the Union of Students in Ireland’s (now defunct) Women’s Rights Action Committee. She kept up her online activism while starting a family and then went on to be a founding member of The Irish Choice Network and then the Abortion Rights Campaign. Her work on breaking abortion stigma had the BBC included her in the list of 100 Women for “inspirational and influential women for 2016”. She is a communications expert, specialised in change management, enjoys lending her expertise to the communities she is a part of. She likes puns, comics, video games and annoying people who tell her how she should behave and what to do with her body.
Lisa Flanagan has worked in the charity sector for over 20 years since graduating from university. She is a passionate fundraiser who is keen to learn from the work of other not for profits to help improve the projects she is managing and ultimately to maximise income for the cause. Lisa has been pro-choice for as long as she can remember and started supporting ASN with a regular gift in January 2018. In her spare time, Lisa likes to explore new places, is an active member of her local book club and can often be found at a comedy club or music venue.
Ruth Fletcher (chair) is a Reader in Medical Law at Queen Mary University of London. She has over 20 years of experience in researching and teaching about law, health and society, including abortion support activities and their legal environment. Her feminist activism began with abortion support back in the 1990s as a student in Trinity College Dublin, and has since included public legal education as an individual academic and with a range of civil society organisations.