Mission creep: Amnesty and abortion
Technorati Tags: amnesty international
Amnesty International last week announced that it had abandoned its policy of neutrality on the issue of abortion in favour of supporting it "in some circumstances", including pregnancies resulting from rape or incest or when the mother's life or health is at stake. Naturally, this has caused a lot of upset, with the Catholic church threatening to withdraw support from the group. Cath Elliot, "a feminist and a trade unionist" who works in local government, wrote an article for Comment is Free supporting the new position, alleging that "forcing a woman to continue with a pregnancy against her will is a continuation of the violence against her"; Sunny at Pickled Politics agrees.
Given that I'm a Muslim, you might guess what my position on abortion is (not pro, although not as strictly anti as the Catholic church is). However, it seems like another example of an organisation succumbing to "mission creep", involving itself in matters which have nothing to do with the reason it was set up - rather like the Soil Association threatening to remove organic status from air-freighted African produce because of the environmental damage air-freighting causes. Amnesty's main work is to free prisoners of conscience, people jailed for peacefully-held beliefs. It also opposes capital punishment - a policy adopted more recently, and sometimes controversial; I remember seeing a letter in their magazine from someone "shocked" at being asked to write on behalf of a mass murderer facing execution in Guatemala.
However, abortion is a totally separate issue, and it seems that they have opted for a "western secular liberal" stance rather than remaining a broad organisation fighting for political freedoms. Surely there are already enough people fighting for women's abortion "rights"; for Amnesty International to take this on as a side issue hardly helps that cause but hurts its own, because of the inevitable falling-off of funding. It is a mistake.
Comments
Read the AI stance fully before you say they're venturing into different areas Yusuf. Their concern, even in this area, is human rights. That is why I agree with them.
Posted by: Sunny | August 23, 2007 12:23 AM
How is the Roman Catholic church goping to "withdraw support" from Amnesty International? In what way has it ever supported Amnesty International?
Posted by: Thersites | August 23, 2007 12:32 PM
This was the problem with the anti-war movement in America. When you went to a rally people were holding anti-death penalty, independence for Puerto Rico, vegetarian, gay rights, and any other kind of a sign you could think of so people who wanted to support them were turned off and the anti-war movement did not know how to stick to one issue.
Posted by: Umar Lee | August 23, 2007 4:20 PM
Whether it's a decision based on human rights or not, it strikes me as a poorly timed one. AI are amongst the foremost critics of the Bush Imperium, and this will only see them more easily dismissed by the US Neocons and their friends.
Posted by: Yunus Yakoub Islam | August 24, 2007 7:51 AM
Amnesty International's purpose is to defend human rights anywhere and of any kind, not criticising specific governments, however repellent that governemt and its general behaviour may be.
Posted by: Thersites | August 25, 2007 4:20 PM
If AI is really about defending human rights, why in the world would they do it by deciding that some humans have no rights whatsoever?
I agree with Indigo Jo: It's mission creep. We don't need another organization on the abortion advocacy bandwagon.
Posted by: Christina Dunigan | August 27, 2007 1:02 AM
Precisely when does an egg and sperm, or their fusion, become human?
Posted by: Thersites | August 27, 2007 9:45 AM