[DEBATE] : The real Amnesty-abortion scandal

[Shannon Walsh]

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3874/
Spiked-online
by Brendan O'neill

On 9/21/07, Vanessa Banton <vanessa.banton at gmail.com> wrote:
> What is the source of this article?
>
> On 9/21/07, Russell Grinker <grinker at mweb.co.za> wrote:
> >
> > Thursday 20 September 2007
> >
> > The real Amnesty-abortion scandal
> >
> > Forget the Catholic Church's predictable stance on abortion. Why is a
> > human
> > rights group so cavalier about a woman's right to choose?
> >
> > What is more shocking? The fact that the Catholic Church, well known for
> > its
> > obsessive opposition to abortion and contraception, should threaten to cut
> > its links with organisations that support a woman's right to choose? Or
> > the
> > fact that Amnesty International, a Western, liberal, progressive outfit
> > whose slogan is 'Protect the Human', remained, until recently, neutral on
> > the question of abortion, and now only supports a woman's right to choose
> > if
> > she has been raped or made pregnant as a result of incest?
> > Yes, Amnesty's stance is far more disturbing. We all know where the
> > Catholic
> > Church stands on reproductive matters. It is an obscurantist institution,
> > which argues that rape victims who become pregnant should consider their
> > babies 'a blessing' from God, and tells 13-year-old boys not to masturbate
> > because a spilled sperm is a wasted sperm (that's like telling 13-year-old
> > boys not to breathe).
> > Amnesty, however, professes to be a modern rights organisation. It was
> > founded to support prisoners of conscience around the world, and more
> > recently it has chastised governments that abuse human rights and become a
> > leading critic of America's prisoner-of-war camp at Guantanamo Bay. Yet on
> > a
> > woman's right to choose - a basic, fundamental right that allows women to
> > be
> > autonomous and to take part in society on an equal footing with men -
> > Amnesty says it does not support 'abortion as a right' (1).
> > The Catholic Church's position is predictably pious and authoritarian.
> > Amnesty's position, its support for abortion only in extremely limited
> > circumstances, is craven. And given the organisation's clout in
> > international debate, it could potentially deliver a far graver bodyblow
> > to
> > people in the developing world who want equality than anything the
> > men-in-frocks might say or do. Yet in the big Amnesty-abortion debate of
> > the
> > past week, the Catholic Church has been chastised for threatening to
> > dissociate itself from Amnesty, while Amnesty has been awarded a 'mountain
> > of admiration' (2) for effectively saying: 'Okay, maybe women who have
> > been
> > sexually assaulted should have access to abortion..'
> > This gets the debate completely the wrong way round - and it captures the
> > disturbingly low horizons many in the West have for people 'over there'.
> > Amnesty was traditionally neutral on abortion. This was partly because it
> > has close links with the Catholic Church and carries out much of its work
> > in
> > Catholic countries, and it did not want to upset the bishops by mentioning
> > the A-word. And it was partly because Amnesty describes itself as a 'human
> > rights organisation', and 'there is no generally accepted right to
> > abortion
> > in international human rights law' (3). This meant that Amnesty could
> > largely ignore the question of abortion, despite the fact that women in
> > the
> > developing world need legal abortion services every bit as much as women
> > in
> > the West do. In countries where abortion is legal, the maternal mortality
> > rate is 0.2 per 100,000 - in countries where abortion is illegal, the rate
> > is 330 per 100,000. There are an estimated 20million abortions around the
> > world every year, and according to the World Health Organisation many of
> > them are 'carried out by unskilled staff in unsafe conditions' (4). Yet in
> > order to keep sweet with the Catholics, and in the name of sticking to the
> > letter of international human rights legislation, Amnesty trotted the
> > globe
> > for years criticising prison conditions and rights violations without
> > uttering a word of public support for a woman's right to choose.
> > Now, Amnesty has ditched its neutrality on abortion. Last month it
> > announced
> > that it will start campaigning for women to have access to abortion in
> > strictly limited situations: that is, if their pregnancy is the result of
> > rape or incest, or if the pregnancy jeopardises the woman's life. This has
> > caused a clash of comments between Amnesty and the Catholic Church. The
> > Vatican called on Catholic groups and individuals to stop giving money to
> > Amnesty. 'The inevitable consequence [of Amnesty's decision] will be the
> > end
> > of all financing from Catholic organisations', said Cardinal Renato
> > Martino,
> > head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Cardinal Keith
> > O'Brien, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, resigned from
> > Amnesty in protest at its new position. This week, the Catholic Church in
> > Northern Ireland called on all Catholic schools to disband their Amnesty
> > student groups; so far, one grammar school in Belfast has followed this
> > advice (5).
> > Over the past two weeks, commentators and human rights activists have
> > taken
> > fire at the Catholic Church over its response to Amnesty's new policy on
> > abortion. One columnist said she had a 'mountain of admiration' for
> > Amnesty
> > and accused the Church of supporting the 'holocaust of teenage girls' who
> > die from botched backstreet abortions every year (6). A feminist writer
> > congratulated Amnesty for taking a 'brave and principled decision' in the
> > face of 'an outpouring of condemnation from religious bodies' (7). On one
> > level, these criticisms of the Church are understandable: it is a disgrace
> > for leading Catholics effectively to use financial blackmail against
> > organisations that do things they disagree with. Yet the backslapping of
> > 'brave' Amnesty misses the real story here, which is that Amnesty's new
> > stance on abortion is actually not that much better than the Church's, and
> > indeed it exposes some very big problems with Western human rights
> > activism
> > in the developing world.
> > Both its traditional neutrality on abortion and its recently announced
> > support for post-rape abortion highlight the limitations to Amnesty's
> > style
> > of do-gooding in the developing world. The main reason why Amnesty was
> > neutral on abortion for so long is because a woman's right to choose is
> > not
> > enshrined in United Nations human rights legislation. In short, if it was
> > not a 'human right', as defined in a dry document drawn up by a
> > supranational body, then Amnesty wasn't really interested.
> > This captures a striking divide between abstract human rights constructed
> > by
> > governments around a table, and real, urgent, lived rights in our everyday
> > lives. The postwar human rights agenda has warped our traditional
> > understanding of rights and liberty. Once, liberty meant being free from
> > state interference, having the right to choose and speak and assemble
> > without a tyrannical government breathing down our necks. Human rights, in
> > a
> > complete flip-reversal, encourage state interference in our lives: they
> > call
> > on governments to provide people with certain very basic 'rights', and to
> > ensure that we also live up to our 'responsibilities'. Consider the way
> > that
> > the American Constitution laid down what governments should not do
> > (restrict
> > free speech, pass laws limiting gun ownership, etc), while human rights
> > legislation lays down, in great detail, what governments should do
> > (provide
> > protection, security, food and so on).
> > In many ways, a woman's right to choose - a real, meaningful right which,
> > if
> > enjoyed, can have an immensely positive impact on a woman's life and
> > status
> > - is the very opposite of a human right. Where human rights are written
> > from
> > on high and passed down like a list of instructions to national
> > governments,
> > the right to choose is about a woman having control over her own body and
> > personhood. It gives her power over her destiny and increases the choices
> > she can make about work, family life and social life. Where human rights
> > emphasise governments' responsibilities to protect people from harm, the
> > right to choose frees a woman from official prying into the decisions she
> > makes about her body and her life; it increases her humanity, it makes her
> > a
> > fuller, more independent human being. The human rights agenda gives rise
> > to
> > Western advocacy on behalf of at-risk individuals, as groups like Amnesty
> > and officials at the UN adopt victimised individuals in the developing
> > world
> > and campaign for their human rights to be reinstated; by contrast, real
> > rights emphasise a person's ability to be a self-advocate, if you like, to
> > make decisions and take actions according to his or her own interests and
> > desires.
> > In short, where human rights infantilise us, treating us as beings with
> > very
> > basic needs who need our governments, the UN and groups like Amnesty to
> > guard us from others, real rights such as the right to choose, as well as
> > the right to vote and the rights to free speech and free assembly, allow
> > us
> > to live as autonomous adults. Amnesty's neutrality on abortion was about
> > more than keeping on side with Catholics. It also reflected the human
> > rights
> > lobby's lack of interest in, possibly even innate hostility towards,
> > traditional rights. After all, a developing world in which people were
> > demanding the right to choose and organise and speak as they saw fit would
> > not need powerful human rights organisations to come and fight its corner.
> > Everything you need to know about today's problematic human rights agenda
> > is
> > contained in the idea that, according to the Amnesty worldview, it is
> > acceptable for countries to adopt human rights without granting women the
> > right to choose. That is, there can be a 'human rights culture' even if
> > there is no free and safe access to abortion; a woman can be said to enjoy
> > human rights even if she does not have basic control over her own
> > reproductive system. Such is the narrow focus of the human rights agenda
> > that you can 'have human rights' and yet still be enslaved.
> > Now, Amnesty's new support for limited forms of abortion reveals much
> > about
> > how Western activists view the Third World: as a hotbed of war, rape and
> > incest, where too many people are being born. Amnesty has not suddenly
> > decided that a woman's right to choose is something worth fighting for.
> > Instead, it says it has altered its policy on abortion in response to what
> > is happening in the warzones of the Congo and Darfur. An Amnesty
> > spokesperson said the organisation is still not campaigning for 'abortion
> > as
> > a right'; rather it was so shocked by the use of rape as a weapon of war
> > in
> > the Congo and Darfur that it now believes raped women should be allowed to
> > abort. One supportive reporter summed up Amnesty's policy as follows: 'To
> > allow the victims of mass rape to give birth is arguably tantamount to
> > complicity in genocide. Because the most horrible conclusion of rape as a
> > weapon of war is that it can change the ethnic make-up of a country. In
> > the
> > case of Darfur, it could mean the steady Arabisation of the next
> > generation.' (8)
> > In other words, Amnesty supports abortion as a means of keeping in check
> > African barbarism rather than as a right that African women should enjoy
> > in
> > the name of liberty and equality. This is not about calling for the right
> > to
> > choose as a common good, a right that might help elevate women's status;
> > rather it is about allowing abortion in certain circumstances as a
> > corrective to rape and destruction. When supporters of Amnesty say that
> > abortion is a necessity to prevent, for example, 'Arabisation' in Darfur,
> > they are effectively calling for a eugenic form of abortion: the use of
> > abortion to control violent 'cross-breeding' and to keep down the numbers
> > of
> > the 'wrong' sorts of people.
> > Here, Amnesty's policy shift fits in with much Western campaigning in the
> > developing world today. Even those organisations that do support people's
> > right to use contraception or access abortion tend to argue that the Third
> > World needs these things because it is so terribly overpopulated. Their
> > central argument against the Catholic Church is that, in demonising
> > condoms
> > and abortion, it is giving the green light to rising birth rates in
> > Africa.
> > And according to one commentator on African affairs, it is 'sheer
> > irresponsibility to reject population control on a continent stalked by
> > famine and stunted by malnutrition, where each year brings another
> > 10million
> > mouths to feed' (9). The Catholic Church may spread backward ideas in
> > Africa
> > and elsewhere, but at least it does not subscribe to the poisonous idea
> > that
> > there are 'too many black babies' being born. Such is the miserabilism and
> > misanthropy of today's human rights and population-control lobbies that
> > the
> > Catholic Church looks almost progressive in comparison.
> >
> > The recent attacks on the Catholic Church miss the point. The really
> > shocking story behind the Amnesty-abortion debate is the way in which
> > human
> > rights groups seem to care little for extending real rights to women in
> > the
> > Third World, and seem to view abortion as a corrective to Africans'
> > rapacious behaviour and continual breeding. Such policies are about as far
> > away from increasing women's independence as you can possibly get. Instead
> > they reduce women to the pathetic victims of wicked men who need
> > Westerners
> > to help them remove their ethnically-warped fetuses. Anyone who supports
> > real development, equality and choice at home and overseas would do well
> > to
> > challenge human rights groups and development NGOs as much as the Catholic
> > Church.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
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