Uh, I am not getting that one.

I think I am. For plenty of people, Amnesty is a good vehicle with which to rail against other groups' violations of human rights. For example, if Amnesty didn't criticize American torture, pro-Americans would be proclaiming the organization a beacon of liberty. So the Catholic Church suddenly opposes Amnesty because it's going to attack its own misdeeds.

The religious folks believe that supporting abortion (in the case of SEXUAL VIOLENCE) is out of sync with Amnesty's mission of supporting human rights. Uh, I am not getting that one.

It's because women, not being human, have no human rights to support.

Another abortion article? Well, I think there is just way too much emphasis on the issue of pro-choice here. I mean, it's an issue, but not THE issue for feminists. Abortion is just one aspect of quality health care for women. And Amnesty International should understand that we feel this way.

Yeah, Amnesty International needs to understand that because there isn't one single feminist health issue, it shouldn't be addressed! I just don't get why you keep harping on this whole "choice" thing, I mean it's not as if there's a strong push by the right wing right now to do away with all reproductive rights, from abortion to contraception to even a woman's choice to be seen as a woman and not an incubator. /sarcasm

Ms. Jane wrote: “…mnesty International should understand that we feel this way.�

Perhaps you don’t need an abortion right now, you don’t think it’s likely you’ll get raped, and if you do end up needing one, you know you can get a safe abortion. Well, lots of women are not as privileged.
On the other hand AI has been doing a lot of work to stop violence against women, both in the US and other countries. You might want to check out their website (aiusa.org) and see the kind of work they do before commenting about them.

Sojourner, I'm confident that Ms. Jane was sarcastic.

While I can’t comprehend the Church’s position on women or abortion. In this case their stance on the issue of abortion in the case of sexual assault and in-turn Amnesty International’s consideration of the issue do make a twisted kind of sense. If you are the Church your logic is probably “two wrongs don’t make a right�.

Hopefully AI’s resource base is deep enough that it will not need to cave to the churches pressure.

The last lines of the article really struck a chord with me:

"We are deeply disappointed by the path taken by Amnesty. For those of us who champion real human rights, these trends make us a bit queasy," said Austin Ruse, the Washington-based president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a nonprofit research group that has called its 100,000 members to mobilize against the proposal.

In some ways, I think the Church is crossing a line. Supporting Amnesty has always entailed a certain degree of freedom from undue influences by governments and other institutions as part of a general campaign for human rights. With that freedom comes the idea of bodily integrity for human beings. Amnesty's support of reproductive choices is just as fundamental as its support of those other human rights.

Skyanide, I'm even more cynical.

I read that statement you quoted and the first words to leap out at me were "real human".

Of course not, Esme, because if any of that was ever really happening, women would want to do something about it. I imagine.

Truthiness is all we need.

I think it's great (and about time) that Amnesty is considering including women's right to access safe, legal abortion as part of its program on sexual violence against women. However, note that the AP article says that Amnesty hasn't actually decided to include abortion rights yet, and the decision isn't likely to come for another year. Here's another story about this topic.