Amnesty members split on abortion

The world's leading voluntary movement for human rights has been undergoing a major internal debate on abortion. Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent, reports

It's 45 years since Peter Benenson, a London lawyer, founded Amnesty International. He was moved by the plight of two young Portuguese men living under the dictatorship of Antonio Salazar who were jailed for seven years over a simple toast to freedom in a bar.

The movement Benenson founded would go on to become a major player on the world stage, putting dictators and repressive regimes of all kinds on the spot - not to mention numerous democracies - and accumulating a membership in or around the two million mark. The organisation was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977.

Recently, Amnesty itself has come under the spotlight arising from its widely-publicised internal debate on the difficult and emotive issue of abortion. Up to this, Amnesty has avoided the abortion controversy like the plague, fearing no doubt that it would have a divisive effect on the organisation's greatest asset, its worldwide voluntary membership.

Like Peter Benenson, a high proportion of Amnesty's members are Catholics, and the organisation's internal debate has attracted the attention of senior church figures such as Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, who wrote in the Sunday Telegraph of Australia on June 25th that "elements in Amnesty's leadership team" are promoting the right to abortion. "There are 72 Amnesty national branches around the world and already New Zealand and Britain have adopted pro-abortion positions," he wrote. If this policy was adopted by the movement as a whole, it would mean that "gospel Christians in every mainline denomination will be compelled to resign".

Similar sentiments came from Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Peace and Justice. "I hope they don't do this because if they do, they are disqualified as defenders of human rights," he said. He wasn't for fudging the issue either: "When they say 'reproductive rights,' they mean abortion."

At a meeting of Amnesty's Canadian section in May, delegates favoured including the right to abortion in cases where women's lives are threatened or they have been victims of sexual violence. In response, Archbishop Raymond Roussin of Vancouver said he regretted Amnesty was "moving to endorse abortion as a so-called human right". Members of other faiths and denominations would also be against abortion but in this instance high-level Catholic spokesmen have been leading the opposition.

The original aim of Amnesty was to aid people jailed across the world for their beliefs. However, it has attempted to widen its original programme of action to include other aims. Consultations are taking place around the world in preparation for the organisation's international meeting in Mexico in August of next year.

Secretary-General of the Irish Section of Amnesty, Colm Ó Cuanacháin, is keen to emphasise the narrow focus of the Amnesty debate. "There is no discussion going on about the absolute right to abortion," he says. Amnesty has no position on that issue, nor is it likely to have in the near future: "There isn't a discussion, as I said, about Amnesty playing a role in relation to the absolute right to abortion."

But Amnesty and others have to cope with the human rights implications of the massive civil strife and conflict that erupted after the end of the Cold War. "I am talking about the Rwandas, the Congos and the Darfurs, the Srebrenicas, where, in the past 20 years we have seen how sexual violence against women is being used as a weapon of war," he says. "As I said, Amnesty doesn't have a position on the right to abortion, but we are discussing sexual and reproductive rights in a context where things like access to information, access to healthcare, access to protection, access to justice for women who are experiencing sexual violence becomes part of the international human rights machinery."

Drawing a parallel with the controversy in Ireland which arose out of the "X" case, he says: "It's the same issues, it's about the issues of health, the health of the mother, it's about the issues of access to information, right to healthcare and support of a woman who has experienced sexual violence."

The position of the UK Section is, "that their members would be willing to accept policy changes in relation to the specific issues around access to information, healthcare and so on". This is not the view of the 20,000 Amnesty members in this State. "The Irish Section members have taken the view that Amnesty International shouldn't change its policies in relation to sexual and reproductive rights," he says.

The supreme decision-making body of Amnesty is its International Council Meeting (ICM), which takes place every two years and will be held next year in Mexico. Ó Cuanacháin, a former chair of Amnesty's International Executive Committee, says it is unclear whether the issue will be discussed: "If there's division I don't see it being pushed along." The current debate is over "for the next year".

There is a diversity of views among Amnesty's Irish membership on the abortion issue. Mary Stewart from Donegal town says, "I am an Amnesty member because of the death penalty." She corresponds with prisoners on Death Row in Florida and has also taken part in Amnesty letter-writing campaigns on behalf of "prisoners of conscience" - people imprisoned for their beliefs. She says the "liberal agenda" has Amnesty in its sights and, if there was a policy-change on abortion, no matter how conditional or qualified, she would resign. "They certainly would lose me," she says. "If you're against death, you're against death." She says the British example shows that trying to set restrictions on abortion doesn't work.

A long-time Amnesty activist, she says she was "always very disappointed they would not take a stance against abortion". But if there is any shift in the other direction, she's out.

"I would be horrified that an organisation set up to defend human rights would allow a defenceless baby in the womb to be killed."

On the other side of the fence but also an Amnesty member, Dublin-based Rosemary Warner describes herself as "pro-choice" but believes the organisation should remain neutral on the issue. "I would not be in favour of a change of policy; I don't think it's an issue that Amnesty should get involved in." Like Stewart, she is a strong opponent of the death penalty and has campaigned against its implementation in the US. She approves of the recommendation by the Irish membership that Amnesty should steer clear of the abortion controversy. This is despite her own personal view that the abortion issue is a complex one and that you cannot have "a black-and-white answer to a grey problem". She believes that "abortion should be an option where somebody gets pregnant against their will".

Time was, when Amnesty used to confine its activities to campaigns on civil and political rights, torture, political prisoners, fair trials and the death penalty. Individual sections could not work on issues inside their own country. All that has changed, there is now a much broader focus and the ban on "own country" activity has been lifted. In Ireland, members campaign on racism and mental health as well as the more traditional Amnesty issues.

Some people regret this, such as ex-Amnesty member Tom O'Gorman, a journalist with the religious paper, The Voice. "Amnesty's heritage is as a non-partisan, single-issue campaign group which supported prisoners of conscience, no matter what the political creed of the prisoner or the jailer," he says. "Over the past number of years, its stance has become far more partisan, advocating definitive stances on particular political issues, on occasion straying almost into party politics."

Colm Ó Cuanacháin says change was both inevitable and necessary. "The reason Amnesty changes is because the world changes," he says. "If we hadn't changedover the 45 years [ since Amnesty's foundation], what role would there be now for an organisation that was focused specifically on prisoners of conscience? How effective would an organisation like that be today?"