Betrayal of Mission

ON A COLD Spring day in 2007 I joined three other Catholics outside the London headquarters of Amnesty International, ready to go in and urge the organisation not to abandon its neutral stance on abortion. A meeting had been arranged with Irene Khan, the international director, and some of her senior staff. All four of us had been stalwart supporters of Amnesty and felt deeply dismayed about the prospect of a change in policy. We also feared that many Catholics would feel unable to continue linking into Amnesty’s work, despite its compassionate efforts on behalf of prisoners of conscience over several decades. Our hope was to lay before them the dilemma for Catholics, and make them aware of how serious the issue would be for their Catholic supporters.



The meeting was friendly and the staff listened respectfully. Our lobby group, which included veteran peace campaigners Bruce Kent and Pax Christi’s UK Director, Pat Gaffney, explained that Catholics would be concerned that the rights of the child should not be overlooked. The latter pointed out too that, “abortion is also a form of violence against women”. Yet, it was clear the Amnesty management felt the issue was in the hands of their international membership, who were increasingly taking the view that abortion is a mother’s right in certain circumstances. This seemed to be particularly pushed by the powerful United States Amnesty section.





Change of policy





Later that year, in August 2007, Amnesty’s International council voted to scrap the organisation’s policy of neutrality on abortion in favour of supporting legal access to the procedure for women who have been raped, or become pregnant as a result of incest, or whose health is seriously threatened if the pregnancy continues. It also called for abortion to be decriminalised, so that women could no longer be jailed in some countries for having a termination. In Nigeria, for example, women can find themselves on death row if they are found guilty of undergoing the procedure. The change was an attempt to address issues including the widespread use of rape as a weapon of war in conflict zones such as Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.



Even before the policy change was endorsed by the membership, a senior Vatican cardinal called on Catholics worldwide to stop donating to the human rights body. Cardinal Martino, who as the Vatican’s ambassador to the UN was known to be a keen supporter of Amnesty’s work, said that Catholics should “withdraw their support” for Amnesty because it had “betrayed its mission” by changing its long-standing neutral stance on abortion. He urged “the suspension of any financing to Amnesty on the part of Catholic organisations and individual Catholics”. In England and Wales, the Catholic bishops then advised more than 2,000 Catholic schools to sever their links with Amnesty. There have also been high profile resignations of Catholic clergy in UK from Amnesty, including the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, and the Bishop of East Anglia, the Right Rev. Michael Evans.





Catholic concerns





The Catholic association with Amnesty dates from the charity’s set up in 1961. Its founder, Peter Benenson, was from a Russian Jewish family, but converted to Catholicism. Throughout Amnesty’s history Catholics have worked there and have at various points held key positions. Pope John Paul II is known to have admired its work, and invited staff to the Vatican in the early years of his pontificate, following the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the organisation in 1977. In 1998, Amnesty was one of only three non-Catholic organisations (along with the Red Cross and the Council of Europe) invited to the first World Congress on the Pastoral Promotion of Human Rights hosted by the Vatican. At grass roots level, many Catholic parishes and schools in Britain have written to some of Amnesty’s ‘prisoners of conscience’ at Christmas.



Amnesty will lose out in many ways if its relationship with the Catholic Church is severed. The trust built up over the years between Catholic clergy on the ground in countries where Amnesty operates may be dented if priests are no longer willing to cooperate and share information with its staff. Catholic schools, particularly in countries such as the United States, Ireland and Italy, often welcome speakers from Amnesty and provide many of the organisation’s younger membership. In terms of figures, Amnesty’s press office told me in July this year that 1,600 individuals in the British section have cancelled membership or said they would cancel membership over the issue. This is out of a UK section membership of 258,000 people. Their religious affiliation was not noted, but I would guess that many were Catholic. On the other hand, 44 people joined Amnesty because of the change in policy. The controversy over abortion does not feature on the Amnesty website, and they clearly wish to play down the controversy.





Gender violence





The issue first surfaced around 2003, when Amnesty launched its Stop Violence Against Women Campaign. The initiative, which aimed to raise awareness of domestic violence, forced and early marriage, and rape as a weapon of war, included a section on women’s sexual and reproductive rights. By 2005, the organisation’s 70 plus sections worldwide started to engage in a consultation process with the membership over whether to change the stance on abortion to one that favoured decriminalisation and access to abortion for victims of rape, incest and in cases where the mother’s life was at risk.



In the UK, a consultation of the membership was launched in September 2006, and it revealed that the majority were in favour of retaining the neutral position. But, following a lively debate at the April 2008 AGM in Edinburgh, the UK section voted for change. Amnesty’s international executive committee then confirmed the historic shift in position, endorsed by the membership. American members were informed via a ‘members-only’ section of the website that the group “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”.



In July 2008, Catholic fears about Amnesty’s new stance on abortion seemed to be realised when the US-based Catholic World News website carried a story saying that Amnesty International was pushing Mexico’s highest court to uphold the legality of abortion. An abortion law passed last year by Mexico City’s Legislative Assembly had been challenged by Mexico’s Attorney General. In support of the law, Amnesty cited several treaties signed by Mexico, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention Against Torture, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, claiming that they required the Court to uphold the legislation.





An unnecessary step





A great many Catholic members of Amnesty wonder why the organisation ever ventured into this issue, and fear that the move may be just a stepping stone on the way to pushing for recognition of a ‘human right’ to abortion on demand. This is something Amnesty categorically denies. Bruce Kent, a lifelong Amnesty member and Catholic, who knew Benenson, told The Tablet Catholic newspaper in April this year that, “from the beginning I thought it was completely unnecessary for Amnesty to take up this issue”. He felt there were already numerous organisations interested in advising and helping women with unwanted pregnancy. “It’s going to create a real problem” he said. Others agree that the move, “could turn Amnesty into a ‘cold-house’ for people of faith”. Bruce Kent believes, however, that there may yet be a way round the “difficult moral situation” faced by Catholic members of Amnesty, for instance through the ‘ring-fencing’ of subscription funds. He has not resigned his membership and wants to stay in there and engage with policy discussion.





The right decision?





So much of what Amnesty does can be supported by Catholics, particularly those inspired by Catholic social teaching: work to abolish the death penalty, end extrajudicial executions and ‘disappearances’, ensure prison conditions meet international human rights standards, ensure prompt and fair trial for all political prisoners, support asylum seekers’ rights, for example. Yet, changing the neutral stance on abortion – and paying scant attention to the rights of the unborn child – has clearly led many Catholics to question the integrity of an organisation that previously enjoyed unwavering support from Catholics. It didn’t help last November, when the head of Amnesty’s UK section, Kate Allen, rebuffed Catholic concerns with the words, “I am disappointed that the Catholic Church has categorised us as a pro-abortion group; that… simplifies things to a sense that I think is a bit nonsensical really”. She felt the change of policy “was the right decision for the movement,” but was anxious to keep the dialogue going with Catholics.



Amnesty International has said officially: “We have to be accountable beyond our membership, to the woman in Darfur who has been raped, the girl in El Salvador with an ectopic pregnancy who is denied an abortion, or the 12-year-old girl bearing a child as a result of incest. This is the nature of our work; you can’t sit at a distance and characterise the debate in abstract terms.”