[NYTr] Amnesty Intl Abortion Stance Bolsters Mexico Activists

Sat Aug 18 04:21:52 EDT 2007

Womens eNews - Aug 17, 2007
http://www.womensenews.org

Amnesty Abortion Stance Bolsters Mexico Activists

By Theresa Braine
WeNews correspondent

MEXICO CITY (WOMENSENEWS)--Pro-choice activists here say they feel
bolstered by Amnesty International's recent resolution recognizing
abortion as part of a woman's right to be free of fear, threat and
coercion as they manage the consequences of rape and other grave human
rights violations.

"Because so many women are suffering, especially those who live in
countries where (abortion) is not decriminalized, they are forced to
have clandestine, unsafe abortions; the more voices that speak up
calling it an injustice, the better," said Mariana Winocur,
spokesperson for the Mexico City pro-choice organization Information
Group on Reproductive Choice, known as GIRE. "It's good for social
justice, for women's health and for women's rights."

London-based Amnesty International winds up its leadership's biennial
gathering here from Aug. 11-18, to discuss and make decisions on human
rights issues being worked on by the organization.

Before the weeklong meeting, Amnesty Secretary-General Irene Kahn
toured Mexico, where she met with various human-rights groups,
including some women's groups, as well as President Felipe Calderon,
who promised to improve Mexico's internal human rights situation and
implement judicial reforms.

"For some time women have been working to get their sexual and
reproductive rights recognized as human rights," said Maria Consuelo
Mejia, executive director of the pro-choice group Catholics for the
Right to Decide, in Mexico City. "This helps close the gap between
human rights activists and women's rights activists. The position that
Amnesty International has taken is very important in this sense."

Pro-choice activists in Mexico were buoyed in April when Mexico City's
municipal legislature legalized all abortions in the first 12 weeks of
pregnancy. Pro-choice groups also supported Amnesty's stance, including
Ipas, a Chapel Hill, N.C., organization that works with local health
care practitioners around the world, and the Mexico office of Marie
Stopes International, the London-based reproductive rights group.

Amnesty International, with about 1.8 million members, is the world's
leading advocacy organization for human rights.

Other rights groups, notably New York-based Human Rights Watch, have
led a recent push to depict equitable access to safe abortion services
as a human right. But Amnesty, founded by a Catholic convert in 1961 to
advocate for political prisoners, has avoided taking a stance on
abortion before now.

Ensuring Rights Free From Coercion

The resolution adopted in April by Amnesty doesn't advocate abortion
rights on demand. Instead it seeks to ensure that women and men can
exercise their sexual and reproductive rights free from coercion,
discrimination and violence, Amnesty spokesperson Suzi Clark told
Women's eNews in an e-mail. "In doing so it responds to the human
suffering caused by abuses of these rights."

As part of Amnesty's global Stop Violence Against Women campaign, Clark
said the policy aims to recognize the right of women to be free of
fear, threat and coercion as they manage the consequences of rape and
other grave human rights violations. "The policy responds to the
findings and concerns of Amnesty International's global work to stop
violence against women," she said.

For instance a pregnant rape survivor in Darfur, where sexual violence
is rife in the war-torn region, is often ostracized by her community,
Amnesty said, and in other countries ranging from Poland to Nicaragua,
women have been denied abortions to save their health or lives.

The World Health Organization estimates that 19 million unsafe
abortions take place annually worldwide; about 68,000 women die from
botched abortion procedures, and 5.3 million suffer either permanent or
temporary disability.

Disapproval from Vatican

Most Catholic and anti-abortion organizations labeled the stance
pro-choice and condemned it. Amnesty has also come under fire from the
Vatican, which called on Catholic individuals and organizations to stop
funding Amnesty; Amnesty has said it has never received official
Vatican funding.

"The action of the executive council undermines Amnesty's longstanding
moral credibility, diverts its mission, divides its own members (many
of whom are Catholic or defend the rights of unborn children) and
jeopardizes Amnesty's support by people in many nations, cultures and
religions," Bishop William S. Skylstad, president of the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a statement in July calling for
Amnesty to revoke its position ahead of its meeting in Mexico City.

Such pronouncements can carry particular weight in Latin American
countries, where the majority of the population is Catholic. For
instance in Brazil, the most populous Catholic country in the world,
Pope Benedict XVI insinuated that politicians voting for pro-choice
measures should be excommunicated during a trip in May.

In a June statement following the Vatican's outcry, Amnesty emphasized
that "these additions do not promote abortion as a universal right"
that the group "remains silent on the rights and wrongs of abortion."

Amnesty's executive board adopted the policy in April following two
years of internal discussions over how it should approach the issue of
abortion.

"Amnesty International's position is not for abortion as a right but
for women's human rights to be free of fear, threat and coercion as
they manage all consequences of rape and other grave human rights
violations," said spokesperson Kate Gilmore in the release.

Mexico City Firestorm

Similar criticisms from Catholic leaders were levied at the Mexico City
legislature, which set off a firestorm after legalizing the procedure.
Bishop Marcelino Hernandez, auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of
Mexico, said that anyone voting for the measure would be automatically
excommunicated when the first abortion was performed.

The federal human rights commission, in conjunction with the Mexico
attorney general's office, challenged the constitutionality of the law
in the Supreme Court on the grounds that the municipal legislature had
overstepped its authority in passing the law. Abortion is regulated by
state governments in Mexico, which generally allow exceptions only in
cases of rape.

The decision is still pending, as is a case filed by the Catholic
Church before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Abortion is severely restricted and even penalized in most Latin
American countries. Chile, El Salvador and Nicaragua ban it completely;
most others allow it under limited circumstances, such as in cases of
rape or danger to a woman's health. Cuba and Guyana have legalized
abortion. Bolivia is revising its constitution this year and may
guarantee the right to life from the moment of conception, Time
magazine reported Aug. 9.

Amnesty's Clark said the group probably won't take any more action on
abortion, given that the issue is just one facet of its position on
people's right to "exercise their sexual and reproductive rights free
from coercion, discrimination and violence."

[Mexico City bureau chief Theresa Braine has written for the Associated
Press, Newsday, People magazine and other outlets about Latin America.
She has been based in Mexico City for four years.]

For more information:

Amnesty International Defends Access to Abortion for Women at Risk: -
http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGPOL300122007

Amnesty International's Stop Violence Against Women Campaign: -
http://web.amnesty.org/actforwomen/index-eng

"Mexico City's Abortion Law Hits Stop and Go Signs": -
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3245/