After months of "studying" the issue, it appears that Amnesty International has now opted for the pro-abortion agenda.
This has been brewing for quite a while. Here is a post from LifeNet, almost a year ago. LifeNet: Amnesty International to support the "right to abortion?"
There was evidently no groundswell from AI members to change their policy from no position on abortion to pro-abortion. For example, when members of the Amnesty Iternational affiliate in the United Kingdom were polled by the organization, more members wanted to leave the policy unchanged, then adopt pro-abortion language. Despite that, the British Board of Directors for the arriliate voted for the change!
Consistent Life (formerly the Seamless Garment Network) has been following this issue closely. The following link will get you to a posting on their website, written by Rachel McNair, the former president of Feminists for Life of America.
Amnesty International and Abortion
...AI has stated that abortion should be decriminalized and the governments should see that there is access to it in particular cases. While it maintains its previous stand against blatantly forced abortions, the pressures that coerce and abandon women to abortion have been ignored. AI decision-makers appear unaware that women who have had abortions make up one of the largest constituency groups of the anti-abortion movement.
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A registry of AI supporters who pled with AI not to take this step is available at http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/consistentlife. Signers include Fr. Daniel Berrigan, who commented: “My moral conviction on abortion and the rights of the unborn are more serious than 'a point of view' . . . It's as close to my conscience as war and the death penalty.” Other signers include Jim Forest, Founder of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation; Prisoner of Conscience Tom Cordero; and Cecilia Brown, noted for her international gay-rights activism. Shelley Douglass, known for her leadership in anti-nuclear weapons activism, states, “as time passes, we will come to understand the violence of abortion.”
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