Amnesty International Calls for Abortion "Decriminalisation"

Editor's note. While I am on vacation, among other items, we'll be running a series of short stories, such as this one written by my long-time associate, Liz Townsend.

In a policy adopted by its International Executive Committee in April but only slowly becoming public, Amnesty International has abandoned its long-standing neutrality on abortion and now embraces abortion for "particular circumstances," according to a letter by Karen Schneider, chair of the Sexual and Reproductive Rights Working Group, found on Amnesty International's web site.

A June 14 Amnesty International press release spelled out the new policy, which is "to support the decriminalisation of abortion, to ensure women have access to health care when complications arise from abortion and to defend women's access to abortion, within reasonable gestational limits, when their health or human rights are in danger."

The policy has angered many supporters who embrace Amnesty International's traditional focus on ensuring human rights but who oppose abortion, the denial of the ultimate human right, the right to life.

The executive committee's policy change was deliberately kept quiet, according to Ryan T. Anderson, a junior fellow at First Things magazine, who found the information in early May on a members-only section of Amnesty's web site.

The site includes a letter to volunteer leaders, stating, "This policy will not be made public at this time."

Sections spell out Amnesty's call for "decriminalization," which it defines as "the removal of all criminal penalties (including imprisonment, fines, and other punishments) against those seeking, obtaining, providing information about, or carrying out abortions."

In addition, the group states that it calls on countries to: "Ensure access to abortion services to any woman who becomes pregnant as the result of rape, sexual assault, or incest, or where a pregnancy poses a risk to a woman's life or a grave risk to her health."

Anderson points to the language that seems to contradict Amnesty's contention that it is not advocating for an abortion "right."

"Wait a minute," he writes in First Things. "We've just gone from 'decriminalizing' abortion to calling on states to 'ensure access.' And, when you throw in the language of a risk to life and health, even if you include the obligatory word 'grave,' all of a sudden every abortion becomes 'ensured.' If you doubt this, just look at the way Roe's health exception and Doe's broad definition of the word have been used."

The abortion issue is expected to be discussed at Amnesty International's International Council Meeting in August, according to the Daily Mail.