Commentary: Amnesty International and the Catholic church

Two interesting articles discuss the reaction to Amnesty’s new stance on abortion. 

Brendan O’Neill, editor of spiked, argues:

‘The Catholic Church’s position is predictably pious and authoritarian. Amnesty’s position, its support for abortion only in extremely limited circumstances, is craven. And given the organisation’s clout in international debate, it could potentially deliver a far graver bodyblow to people in the developing world who want equality than anything the men-in-frocks might say or do. Yet in the big Amnesty-abortion debate of the past week, the Catholic Church has been chastised for threatening to dissociate itself from Amnesty, while Amnesty has been awarded a “mountain of admiration” for effectively saying: “Okay, maybe women who have been sexually assaulted should have access to abortion…”.

‘This gets the debate completely the wrong way round – and it captures the disturbingly low horizons many in the West have for people “over there”’ ...

Read the full article here: The real Amnesty-abortion scandal. spiked, 20 September 2007

Zoe Williams, columnist for the Guardian, argues:

‘[I]n sub-Saharan Africa 70% of women who end up in hospital after an unsafe abortion are under 20; a study in Uganda showed that teenagers made up 60% of deaths from backstreet terminations. In short, while we are worrying about whether 15-year-olds should be allowed on catwalks, their peers in the developing world are trying to survive what amounts to a cull.

‘This is what Amnesty International is talking about, with a pro-abortion position - not bishop-baiting for the hell of it, but the unnecessary deaths of thousands upon thousands of vulnerable and usually very young women. This is what Northern Irish Catholics are saying, when they decide to wash their hands of involvement with the group. They’re not turning their noses up at the whims and mores of the metropolitan faithless, they are saying: “Not only do we agree with this holocaust of teenage girls, we think these women are dying for a good reason. And furthermore, we think they’re dying for such a good reason that we’re prepared to halt this charity’s activities even on behalf of vulnerable men, just to make a point.” What do you say to an institution like that?’ ...

Read the full article here: Faith schools should not be tax-funded, and here’s why. Guardian, 19 September 2007

Read on:

More fallout from Amnesty International’s new abortion stance. Abortion Review, 3 September 2007

Vatican turns on Amnesty International. Abortion Review, 15 June 2007