Amnesty International Asks Members to Allow It to Promote Abortion Worldwide 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 27, 2006
New York, NY (LifeNews.com) — Amnesty International has generally promoted curbing human rights abuses that many people can rally in opposition to, but now the human rights group wants to make abortion an international human right and target nations with pro-life laws.
AI leaders have sent documents to its membership proposing three area in the abortion debate where the group could be involved.
They say that abortion should become an international right and pro-life laws toppled in nations that have them. Women who are raped or in situations where the pregnancy threatens their life should have an unlimited right to abortion and the group wants to make sure that women who have complications from a botched abortion get proper medical care.
"Governments have responsibilities to ensure that everyone’s sexual and reproductive rights are protected," AI says in its documents. "No one should be discriminated against when and if they attempt to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights, or ask that they be protected."
Cheryl Hotchkiss, an AI official based in Canada told the CanWest New Service that exposing the human rights group to more opposition, from pro-life groups, is nothing new.
"We [faced opposition] on the death penalty, while some issues around imprisonment are hot potatoes, so it’s not new to us," she said. "As an organization we have increasingly expanded our work on women’s human rights."
AI members are asked for comment on the proposal to promote abortion by the group’s annual meeting in May. Comments are also being accepted for the group’s global meeting in Mexico in August 2007.
Thanks to Bush administration officials, the United Nations has not ratified documents declaring abortion an international right and the president will likely work to prevent that as long as he is in office.
However, the AI documents say they will encourage NGOs who lobby at the UN to press for an international document saying abortion is a human right.
TAKE ACTION: Tell Amnesty International that you don’t want it to become a pro-abortion organization fighting to make abortion legal worldwide. Go to https://web.amnesty.org/contacts/engindex to contact the group and express your opposition.
Related web sites:
Amnesty International – https://www.amnesty.org
