Prochoice Amnesty means no choice for members

We should be clear what is at stake here. Amnesty’s abandonment of its neutral stance on abortion will exclude those whose religious beliefs lead them to a position of conscience opposing abortion. It will weaken the ability of Amnesty to work effectively in many parts of the third world. It will identify Amnesty as a secular, partisan, first world body, playing into hands of, for example, Islamic radicals looking to discredit human rights activism as a Western driven agenda. It will weaken the campaign against capital punishment in the United States by driving a wedge between its two most vocal institutional critics, the Catholic Church and Amnesty. It could embroil Amnesty in campaigns against abortion laws in countries such as Ireland or in Latin America.

As a Catholic I find it particularly sad to see Amnesty go down the path of abortion advocacy. Amnesty was founded in 1961 by an English Catholic, Peter Benenson, who died last year. Amnesty and the Church have worked together in many areas. Here in Australia, Amnesty and the Church stood together in the campaign against the execution of the Australian, Van Tuong Nguyen, in Singapore in 2005.

Amnesty played an important role in the campaign to gain the freedom of Australian priest and social activist Fr Brian Gore who was jailed in the Philippines by Ferdinand Marcos in 1983. Defending the rights of refugees and asylum seekers has also been an area of common endeavour.

I do not question the sincerity of those pushing for Amnesty to abandon its neutrality on abortion, but I do question their judgment about the impact of such a decision on a body dedicated to protecting prisoners of conscience, and I worry about a consultation process that seemed secretive and lacking in respect, even at the highest levels, for those who in conscience hold a view that abortion is an attack on the human rights of the most vulnerable members of the human family.