Amnesty International was founded in 1961 by a man called Peter Benenson, who in fact was a Catholic.
The organization has done good work struggling to end torture, political killings, the death penalty and "disappearances." On many occasions it has fought for the release of prisoners of conscience. It has been an aggressive champion of human rights.
Recently elements in Amnesty's leadership team have proclaimed a new right. The notion of human rights has been so twisted and changed that the claim is that every woman has the right to abort her baby when she so decides. This is double-speak at its best.
Formerly Amnesty had a neutral position on abortion, because there was no generally accepted right to abortion in international human rights law.
Amnesty followed the policies set out by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, only three years after the end of the Second World War when 50,000,000 people were killed, the worst war in history. It was a charter of peace proclaiming rights for all people in all places and at all times. This is now under threat.
There are 72 Amnesty national branches around the world and already New Zealand and Britain have adopted pro-abortion positions. Australia votes at the end of this month. If there is a consensus and most sections accept the anti-life position, then the international executive will begin to implement the pro-abortion policy for next year. If there is no agreement, the international council meeting in Mexico in August 2007 will decide.
Amnesty now has 1.8 million members around the world but any decision that "a woman's right to physical and mental integrity includes her right to terminate her pregnancy" will mean that gospel Christians in every mainline denomination will be compelled to resign. Much of the group's energy and enthusiasm will be drained from it.
It is a tragedy that after 45 years Amnesty risks losing its capacity to distinguish a genuine human right from a totally bogus claim. This humanitarian organization is on the brink of working for a universal right to kill.
A woman's reproductive right to choose cannot suppress the more basic human right to life itself. Article 3 of the U.N. Declaration proclaims that "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person".
In every country where Amnesty's intentions have been made public Christian leaders have objected strongly, e.g. in England, the United States, Canada, India. Amnesty has gone particularly quietly in the United States because pro-life awareness and sympathies are more developed there.
Pope John Paul II said that an inability to distinguish good from evil is "the most dangerous crisis which can effect man."
Let us hope there will be sufficient clear minded humanitarians in Australia, and throughout the world, to prevent Amnesty making a terrible mistake and betraying its origins.
