This month, Amnesty International adopted a policy change that moves the human rights group further in a radical anti-Life direction. A press release following the July meeting of Amnesty International delegates in Warsaw, Poland, states:
Representatives voted to adopt an updated position on abortion that calls on States not just to decriminalise abortion, but to guarantee access to safe and legal abortion in a broad way that fully respects the rights of all women, girls, and people who can get pregnant.
Ironically, this uncompromising anti-Life position is described by Tawanda Mutasah, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Law and Policy, as a “more compassionate approach from governments to protect the rights of the people who are most at risk.” Preborn girls are given no protection under the policies Amnesty International now advocates. A class of human beings, the preborn, can be violently killed for any reason under abortion on-demand, yet Amnesty International no longer seeks to defend them. Amnesty International actively works to strip them of the most basic human rights.
Until 2007, Amnesty International held a neutral position on abortion, citing the obvious fact that “there is no generally accepted right to abortion in international human rights law.” In 2007, the group began to advocate for the decriminalization of abortion. A human rights organization that actively advocates for depriving some human beings, the preborn, of the Right to Life was rightly described as “the ultimate oxymoron.”
Although the group maintained that representatives did not advocate for abortion as a human right, this claim was harder and harder to defend in the years that followed. Stefano Gennarini of the Center for Family and Human Rights notes, “In the Irish [abortion]referendum and across Latin America, Amnesty International has been perhaps the most visible international organization in favor of depriving children of protections in the womb.” Indeed, for years, Amnesty International has engaged in aggressive advertising and political advocacy for anti-Life policies in strongly Pro-Life countries.
As Gennarini argues, the new policy has disturbing implications for the debate in American politics surrounding the current nominee to the Supreme Court and the Roe v. Wade decision. He writes, “It is likely that when the previous abortion decision come [sic] before the Court that groups like Amnesty International will argue that abortion is a recognized human right binding on the United States.”
The claim that abortion is a human right reveals the illogic of the anti-Life worldview that claims protecting the lives of both the mother and child is impossible. Amnesty International claims that the updated policy is in response to the dangers of “unsafe abortions.” Studies of illegal abortions worldwide are flawed and dependent on speculative data. Furthermore, the claim that abortion is a necessary human right that prevents “unsafe” abortions ignores the fact that every abortion is unsafe for preborn babies. Additionally, the claim that legal abortion is safe for women is demonstrably false. As Texas Right to Life wrote previously in analyzing a study from the World Health Organization:
Notably, the study found that “almost all abortions in developed countries were deemed safe.” The families who have lost loved ones to botched abortions in the United States might be surprised to learn that “almost all abortions” in our country are considered “safe.” Even legal abortions allegedly held to minimal safety standards are committed by a predatory abortion industry that poses grave danger to women undergoing elective abortion. Additionally, systemic abuses and neglect of basic patient safety have been seen in developed countries, such as the recent scandal involving Marie Stopes International, the U.K.’s largest abortion chain.
Amnesty International’s updated policy embracing abortion on-demand is regrettable. Women around the world deserve full protection of the Right to Life and all other human rights. Abortion is not and never will be a human right, because abortion is a violent and unjust action that takes the Life of an innocent human being. In order to advance women’s health, the international community needs to support women instead of telling them that their success requires them to kill their children.