Mirror of Justice

Dear Fellow Amnesty Members and Activists:

As some of you may know, Amnesty International’s 2005 International Council Meeting called for a process to “enable AI to take an informed decision as to the organization’s position” regarding abortion. AI is presently neutral on abortion. The decision now being contemplated would endorse various rights to abortion.

I think an AI endorsement of abortion rights would be a mistake, for three reasons: Endorsing abortion rights would cause further harm to already oppressed women, particularly in the developing world. Endorsing abortion rights would hurt AI’s important work for human rights in general. And the consultation process being used by AI is woefully inadequate to generate a thoughtful and democratic result. Let me explain these three assertions.

If a woman is dominated by others, certain rights she is given will be exercised against her by those who dominate her :

The “Draft Amnesty International Policy Statement on Abortion” begins with words of great wisdom: “In practice, many women are simply unable to effectively negotiate the terms and conditions of their sexual interactions and reproductive choices due to pervasive discrimination, coercion and violence against them.” [#1] Unfortunately, the  Draft Policy contents itself with saying that AI “believes” women should not be so coerced [#6] and then goes on to suggest providing the coercers with another weapon that they can use against the women they dominate, i.e. “decriminalization [of abortion] in all cases” [#8]. (Note that I am purposely ignoring the fetus here.)

In other words, the AI Draft Policy is idealistic but misguided. It genuinely seeks to help oppressed women, but it would end up hurting them. Here’s an analogy: Suppose a certain nation has a law limiting women to ten hours of work a day, but no law at all limiting men’s work. Clearly such a law is sexist and harms women who would be powerful enough to control they own lives. For example, such a law would stop Westernized and educated young women from working the 14 hour days that it takes to crawl to the top of a modern business, thus preserving an all-male leadership. But should the law be abolished? What if the vast majority of the women in that nation are not their own masters? What if the elimination of the sexist law would cause untold misery, as women would be forced to spend all their waking hours in a sweatshop? Isn’t abolishing the law putting the cart before the horse? Shouldn’t women first be empowered and then given the right to work as many hours as they wish?

Abortion rights are the same. They may truly be liberating for powerful women whose careers cannot easily accommodate children, for women who are truly free to choose without outside pressures and for whom the opportunity costs of children are very great. Polls indeed show that such women overwhelmingly support a right to abortion. By contrast, poorer women, even in the USA, are the group most hostile to abortion. Why would they want abortion available if it’s only going to result in a boyfriend, a parent, a husband, or an employer coercing them (even by violence) to forego one of the few satisfactions they have in their oppressed lives, the love of a child? Or just think how the availability of abortion can facilitate raw sexual exploitation: A college student told me once: “I’m really pro-choice, but you can bet I tell my boyfriend I’m 100% pro-life.” She knew that the option of abortion could easily make him less careful. But not all young women are so clever. (Consult the great feminist thinker Catherine MacKinnon for more on the effect of making abortion a “privacy” right. She points out that it is precisely in women’s private lives that male dominance is most extreme.)

The developing world is much, much worse for most women, as the first section of the Draft Policy so well stated (see above). Except for a tiny elite segment of women (which unfortunately may be the only non-male presence at international conferences set up to propose new laws) abortion hurts women because it empowers husbands, sweatshop owners, and pimps to use them with impunity. The rule is very simple: Those who make real life choices for women are the real rights holders, regardless of who may have the formal legal right to make decisions.

Even seemingly obvious rights to abortion, such as abortion after rape or incest, may backfire against women where they are weak. After all, in most societies rape and incest are viewed very negatively, if they are discovered. Male predators ordinarily want their victims to have abortions so they won’t be exposed and punished, and so that they can continue their sexual exploitation. Only in a modern nation, with a good police force, could predators regularly be caught and punished, so that the abortion decision could be truly that of the woman. This is a tough call I admit, if we put aside any fetal interests, but the uncertainty of the real life impact of laws permitting abortion after rape should give one second thoughts about making even abortion after rape into an international right, applicable in all countries.

In summary, to proclaim rights to abortion around the world is to adopt a first-world, or an upper elite, view of the beneficiaries of such rights. A down-to-earth look at poor and oppressed women’s actual lives will lead one to conclude that women would first need to be empowered before they could truly benefit from any rights to abortion.

Amnesty will no longer be able to proclaim complete support for Human Rights if it endorses abortion :

As a teacher of comparative law, I can tell you the right to life of the fetus is explicitly protected by a number of international treaties and national constitutions. Fundamental rights to abortion are recognized far less extensively.

I’m not saying that only a few nations permit abortion. Many do. But very few treat it as a basic human right.  Abortion is permitted simply because the legislature of the nation has decided to pass such a law, but that law could be repealed tomorrow without violating any treaty or constitution. Nowhere in Europe

(with the possible exception of abortion for severe health reasons in Italy) is there a clear constitutional right to abortion, to my knowledge. But various countries’ constitutions or constitutional court decisions contain a right to life. Germany is one. The unborn child has a constitutional right to life throughout pregnancy there, recognized twice by the high court in lengthy decisions in 1975 and in 1993. Do not rely on the over-simplified report that Germanydoes not punish abortion in the first 12 weeks, as long as the pregnant woman has undergone solidly pro-life counseling and has waited three more days to think it over. That is true, but the Court’s reasoning is that the counseling will save more unborn lives than threats of punishment. Strange as it may seem to us, abortion goes unpunished in Germanyi n recognition of a fetal right to life, not of a maternal right to abortion. And why does Germany care about unborn life? The answer given by the Court is that to permit abortion is to head once again down the path to devaluation of individual human life followed by the Nazis. If Amnesty were to proclaim a right to abortion, according to German human rights doctrine, it would be attacking life, the most basic human right of all, and following again that dreaded path.

The regional human rights treaty for the Americas, the American Convention on Human Rights (Pact of San José, 1969) explicitly proclaims “Every person has the right to have his life respected. This right shall be protected by law and, in general, from the moment of conception.” [Art. 4(1)]. It also emphasizes that “’person’ means every human being.” [Art. 1(2)] Thus we see that the unborn child is recognized as a person with a right to life from the moment of conception. When it comes to legal protection of that right, it is true, the signatory states have a little flexibility (presumably to deal with any clash with the mother’s equal right to life) because of the words “in general.” But this is not phrased as a limit on the right itself, but only as a permitted (but not required) minor exception to the enforcement of that right. Does Amnesty really want to proclaim a right to violate the core of a major human rights treaty? Does it want to have to say from now on: “We’re for many recognized human rights, but we’re opposed to others”?

It is true that the recent Protocol to the African Charter endorses a very limited right to abortion—the first such treaty right in the world. This is quite ironic, however, since black Africa may be the most pro-life part of the globe. A recent Pew poll, for example, found that 64% of Nigerians and a whopping 81% of Kenyans said women should be stopped from having abortions (USA: only 32%, according to Pew). How much does that Protocol represent the African peoples as opposed to representing NGOs and other elites? Does AI want to be part of what may well be a shoving of elite westernized interests down the throats of Africans? Why not stay out of the whole uncertain mess, by staying neutral on abortion?

Lastly, and most simply: Amnesty International has long had one clear message: Human Dignity. AI has proclaimed that rights are not just for the strong, or just for citizens, or just for non-criminals, or just for adults. AI has always said that just being human is all one needs to have human dignity and human rights. But no one seriously doubts that the unborn offspring of two humans is also human. So if AI endorses a right to abortion, it is saying that merely being human and alive is no longer enough for dignity and rights. Amnesty will either have to make a deep change in its self understanding and abandon its foundation in the dignity of simply being human, or else constantly face the charge of hypocrisy from many opponents and erstwhile supporters.

The current consultation process is deeply flawed. It is not designed to produce thoughtful or democratic reflection from long time AI supporters :

First of all, non-members have no voice at all in the consultation. This is unfair and unwise because many of AI’s strongest supporters are thus left out of the conversation simply because they forgot or couldn’t afford their dues, even though they may regularly join in letters, petitions, rallies and other AI causes.

Perhaps It could be argued that any final voting should be done by members, but why not at least get the opinions and views of non-member AI activists? This is not being done at all. The Draft Policy and accompanying documents are available only to those who type in someone’s membership data. (Here are mine, for any AI supporters who want to take a look at the documents:  Username: rstith  Password: 1a9iwyq Scroll down to the lower right.) Moreover, when various members of Consistent Life called AI headquarters in New York, they were told curtly that AI is staying neutral on abortion rather than thinking of changing it. And no record of the callers’ views or names seemed to be kept. (Consistent Life is a group to which I belong that is opposed to all violence: no war, no death penalty, no abortion, no euthanasia, no poverty and no racism. We have all traditionally supported AI, though only some of us have been actual members at any given time.)

However, in fact voting on the policy will not be democratic even among the AI paid members; it will be done by certain leaders—supposedly after receiving input from members. But the questions asked (if one can find them; they’re not prominent even in the members-only pages of the AI website) cannot possibly generate people’s true or deep opinions on a subject like abortion. Please take a personal look at all of them, but here are the first four questions:  (1) “Is the scope of this policy consistent with 2005 ICM decision 3, especially paragraph D?” (2) “Is the level of detail in this policy and the supporting notes appropriate?” (3) “Which of the options in paragraph 6 do you prefer?” [What if you don’t like either?] (4) “Which of the options presented in paragraph 8 do you prefer?” [The only choice here is between complete decriminalization throughout pregnancy and complete decriminalization except in some unspecified late part of pregnancy. A small paragraph in the 14-page “Explanatory Notes” shows that either option will be taken to endorse a right to abort for sex selection or for the “potential disability status of the fetus.”]

The Explanatory Notes accompanying the questions are dense and confusing. They seem almost designed to obfuscate (or even to manipulate) rather than to clarify. For example, the only option in question 3 (regarding paragraph 6) is whether to append (to a general statement supporting freedom in termination decisions) the following sentence: “Such decisions are a matter of private conscience to be decided by the woman in consultation with her health service provider.” I would read the sentence in question to be a kind of encouragement to be reflective and to get medical advice before exercising one’s freedom. But the Explanatory Notes say “Opponents of this sentence argue that … use of this terminology could give the impression that AI is staking out a broad ‘pro-abortion’ position here.”

For the three reasons I have explained above, I believe it would be highly unwise for Amnesty International to adopt its Draft Policy endorsing rights to abortion. Such a right might benefit powerful elites, but it would harm many of our most vulnerable sisters in the developing world. It would clash head-on with the internationally recognized human right to life of the fetus, and even with Amnesty’s own foundation in universal human rights. And many AI supporters may be alienated not only by the substance of the proposed policy but also by the un-open fashion in which the new policy is being “debated.”

If you agree with some of these arguments, please do whatever you can to make your views known to the leadership of Amnesty International.

                                                                           Sincerely,

                                                                           Richard Stith

                                                                           Member, Amnesty International

                                                                           Member, Consistent Life

                                                                           Email: [email protected]

                                                                           Website: www.consistent-life.org