What we think

I HAD AN email this morning about the blog asking why there was so much information from the Catholic Church. We’re always happy to hear from people and you can email us at saveamnesty @ gmail.com (you’ll need to remove the spaces on either side of the @ symbol – they’re added to reduce spam).

We do have a lot of information from the Catholic Church and the Catholic hierarchy – that is because many of the Church’s statements reflects the position we hold over this issue and the Church has been more vocal about the issue than any other organisation. But we have stressed in the past that this is not just a Catholic matter – and in the blog there are links to comments on the issue from different Christian denominations, other religions, including Islam, and those with no faith. We would be delighted to consider all comments from different religious groups and those with no affinity – and would be grateful for any information on this.

While we freely admit that we object to Amnesty International’s newly adopted abortion policy on moral and ethical grounds, that is far from our only objection and concern; for example, we’ve argued in the past that the policy is:

• Inconsistent with AI’s s stated aim of protecting human rights;its arguments for other human rights; and inconsistent with international human rights laws, treaties and conventions.

 

The small print

ELEANOR Roosevelt inspecting the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Included in the Declaration is the right to life. According to Amnesty International’s new policy on abortion apparently there was some small print in there that she missed: AI thinks that you have to be at a certain stage of life before they apply and until then other people’s rights take priority…some people are just more equal than others, the human rights organisation appears to believe. I think the bottom picture should also include “subject to status”! Thanks to KD for sending this in.

 

Scottish cardinal resigns from Amnesty

SCOTLAND’S most senior Catholic, Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Edinburgh says he will leave Amnesty International following the organisation’s decision to adopt a pro abortion policy.

The cardinal, who has been a member of AI for 40 years, said he was leaving the organisation as a “matter of conscience”. He commented: “That basic and most fundamental of all human rights, the right to life is recognised by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the document upon which Amnesty International was founded. Sadly now Amnesty International seems to be placing itself at the forefront of a campaign for a universal ‘right’ to abortion in contravention to that basic right to human life.”
In contrast to many other countries, the Scottish Catholic hierarchy has been quiet on the issue until now and this is a welcome, though belated, message from the Scottish Catholic church. The full text of Cardinal O’Brien’s comments are given below.

 

Comments on AI’s abortion decision from around the web

BELOW ARE some of the views being posted around the web on Amnesty International’s decision on abortion. More will follow. Also see Consistent Life’s page for more links. It might be worth pointing out that the quotes here come from a variety of sources: Pro-Life sources, Christian sources, Muslim blogs, and blogs with no links to any religious or pro-life group. Amnesty International’s position is made clear in the documents it tried to cover up in April.

“Violence cannot be answered with further violence; murder with murder; for even if the child is unborn, it is still a human person. It has a right to dignity as a human being.” Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone as reported by Spero News

“If Amnesty International becomes an organisation which affirms the right to abortion, even under certain circumstances, it is free democratically to do so. But it cannot expect those of us who are just as passionate about the human rights of the unborn child to feel at ease being part of such an organisation.” – Rt Rev Michael Evans as reported in the Times of London

“By its actions Amnesty International has shown that in today’s world what determines a “human right” is based on ideology rather than human dignity.” – John Mallon, Human Life International

“It is a tragedy that AI has adopted abortion as a human right. It has now placed in jeopardy the wonderful work that it has performed.”– Right to Life, New Zealand

“I think it sad that Amnesty should get involved with something that simply isn’t in its remit; it will inevitably compromise the good work it does.” – Nova et Vetera blog

 

Cut the Razzle Dazzle, AI – it’s tarnished

SIXTY-FIVE YEARS ago a conference of officials from a well-known organization met in the suburb of a great city to discuss a problem.

The result of that conference shocked and sickened the world; it stripped millions of human beings of their fundamental rights and dignities – including their right to life – and it demonstrated the depths of inhumanity.

Today we vilify those Nazi officials who met at Berlin’s Wannsee conference in1942 as monsters. Of course, their actions may indeed have been monstrous, but they were human, just like the rest of us. And perhaps it was that spark of humanity left in some of them that made them realize what they were debating was, if not unpalatable to them, would be deplorable to the outside world. So, with breathtaking spin, they coined a phrase to soften what was really going on; an apparently innocuous, safe, and acceptable phrase to refer to their plans. We now know that that phrase was a euphemism for state-sanctioned murder, butchery and barbarism; and it is a phrase that still has the power to send shivers up the spine when contemplating the underlying reality: The Final Solution.

Today officials from an entirely different, well-known organization are meeting in one of the world’s great cities: their decision will effect millions of individuals and they will use a euphemism to cover up the unpalatable reality of the effect of their policy.

 

Two institutions made a mockery of in a week, but there’s still time for AI

Zimbabwe was once a prosperous nation – the bread basket of Africa – well farmed, with a strong economy and a stable government: it was a nation that, for all its faults and its needs for social reform (which included the need for fairer distribution of land), thrived and was respected. We know the reality today. A brutal, corrupt and incompetent government has brought the country to its knees: it relies on the handouts from the UK, EU and US to survive and bites the hand that feeds it; its mind-boggling inflation rates and mounting debt has forced electricity supplies to be slashed to 4 hours a day. So it makes a mockery of the United Nations that Zimbabwe has been chosen to head the UN’s Commission on Sustainable Development.

Amnesty International has been respected for its human rights work since it started; campaigning for the rights of individuals and saving many thousands of lives in the process. It well-deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for its work. But, as we have seen with Zimbabwe, reputations crumble quickly. It is no less of a mockery to human rights that AI has adopted a policy that advocates abortion and continues to call itself a human rights organization, than Zimbabwe’s chairmanship of the CSD is a mockery of the UN. AI is aware that its decision to advocate abortion is not only divisive and contrary to members’ wishes, but it also risks denying millions of individuals their human rights (see previous post).

But there is still time for AI bosses to reflect on the wishes of the organization’s members, its past triumphs and reverse this policy, before AI – like Zimbabwe’s leaders – irrevocably loses widespread support and respect. Urge Amnesty’s leaders to take this opportunity and tell them that there is, in effect, still time to SAVE AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL.

 

Hooray!! It’s UN Freedom of the press day – so here’s something AI isn’t publishing yet

On UN World Freedom of the Press day, here’s Amnesty International USA’s response to some anticipated bad press (with a couple of comments)

Media Response Letter on Amnesty International’s
Policy on Sexual and Reproductive Rights
April, 2007

Note: This letter is only to be sent to newspapers as a response to articles, editorials or letters to the editor that are critical of the new sexual and reproductive rights policy; it is not to be sent proactively. (oops!!)

To The Editor:
Violence against women is pervasive worldwide. (Yes, this is dreadful, but this is not the issue here) In conflict zones from Bosnia to Sudan to Guatemala, rape has been used as a weapon of war. (And how many Amnesty International members and good thinking people do not abhor this? Again, this is clouding the issue.) The World Health Organization estimates that one woman in five will be the victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. (Again, absolutely dreadful, but not the point here. This tactic of trying to make out that those people who oppose abortion do not care for protecting women is low – and wrong)

 

What Amnesty International doesn’t want you to know

So it would appear that Amnesty International has taken the tragic decision to advocate abortion as a “human right” (see comment on the post below), but is so concerned about the fuss that will be made that it does not want to officially say anything. In line with Amnesty’s own campaign to prevent censorship of the web, here is a letter posted on the AIUSA members’ website (their emphasis):

Dear Volunteer Leaders,
Amnesty International’s International Executive Committee (IEC) has adopted a new position on Sexual and Reproductive Rights that includes support for abortion in very particular circumstances, in the context of our work to stop grave human rights abuses against women and girls. This new policy, which grew out of our campaigning to stop violence against women and the tragic circumstances in which women all too often find themselves, will enable the organization to:
Support women who seek a safe, early medical termination of pregnancy in cases of rape, incest or when a woman’s life or health is at grave risk.
Urge governments to make medical care available to women who suffer complications from unsafe abortions;
Oppose imprisonment and other criminal penalties for abortion against women and their providers.

It is very important to be aware of the following: This policy will not be made public at this time.

 

Women urge AI not to set precedent for genocide

Women for Life International has become the latest group to oppose Amnesty International’s proposals to advocate abortion as a human right and warned that, if passed, the proposals would set a precedent for unfettered “fetal genocide” and exploit women worldwide.

Molly White, co-founder of the North American based group, said: “The proposed policy is not only in direct conflict with the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights … but adoption of such a policy would set a precedent for worldwide, unfettered fetal genocide; worldwide exploitation of pregnant women, especially poor women; and a worldwide epidemic of violence against women and the girl child.”

 

AI warned it risks abandoning principles to abuse human rights

Amnesty International risks becoming complicit in one of civilization’s greatest human rights abuses and taking the side of tyrants, according to the world’s largest pro-life movement.

Speaking just days after Amnesty International UK’s vote to support advocating abortion as a human right, Human Life International’s president Father Thomas Euteneuer warned the organization that if it dropped its neutral stance on abortion it would become its “own enemy, and become complicit in one of the greatest human rights abuses of all time: abortion on demand.”

He continued: “It was bad enough they were neutral on the crime of abortion in the first place, but if they drop even that they switch sides to stand on the side of tyrants and genocide.

“The failure to see the plight of the unborn for the injustice that it is represents a grave moral blindness, not a sensitivity to the oppressed.”