Amnesty betrayed its mission of supporting rights

Cardinal, Berrigan blasts Peace Prize winner for backing abortion

By Catholic News Service
North Haven, Conn.

Amnesty International "has betrayed its mission" by supporting the legalization of abortion around the world, said the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

"I believe that, if in fact Amnesty International persists in this course of action, individuals and Catholic organizations must withdraw their support because, in deciding to promote abortion rights, AI has betrayed its mission," Cardinal Renato Martino said.

Martino made his comments in an email interview with the National Catholic Register.

His views were echoed by Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan, an iconic figure in pacifist and human rights circles.

"One cannot support an organization financially or even individually that is contravening something very serious in our ethic," Berrigan said.

Berrigan, a poet and author who was on the leading edge of the U.S. anti-war movement in the 1960s, said he was drawn to Amnesty International because of its "activity on behalf of powerless people."

But he said no one is more powerless than the child in the womb. "I was quite shaken by this change," he said.

New position

Amnesty International, a widely respected human rights organization, had been officially neutral on abortion until this April, when its executive committee adopted a new position calling for the decriminalization of abortion around the world.

In spelling out its new policy Amnesty claimed it supports a right to abortion only for women impregnated by rape or incest or in cases of grave risks to the mother's health or life.

But it said it supports legislation that decriminalizes abortion in all cases because rape victims "face daunting and sometimes insurmountable challenges" if they must prove rape in order to obtain an abortion.

It said the new policy "allows AI to call governments to account for their laws and policies on abortion and to make appropriate public policy recommendations toward the realization of women's human rights."

Betrayal of supporters

Martino said that by its new policy Amnesty International "has betrayed all of its faithful supporters throughout the years, both individuals and organizations, who have trusted AI for its integral mission of promoting and protecting human rights."

The cardinal said "it is never justifiable to kill an innocent human life."

"To selectively justify abortion, even in the cases of rape, is to define the innocent child within the womb as an enemy, a 'thing' that must be destroyed," he wrote.

Founded by a Catholic

"How can we say that killing a child in some cases is good and in other cases it is evil?"

Amnesty International, founded in 1961 by a British convert to Catholicism, Peter Benenson, is noted for its defence of innocent victims of violence, especially those imprisoned not for crimes but simply because of their beliefs or political views.

Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 -- Western Catholic Reporter