Church in the World

Church resists campaign to make abortion a right

Kenya

Catholic Bishops around the world are set on a collision course with the lobbying might of Amnesty International, now that its policy change on abortion has opened the way for the group to campaign to change legislation around the world, write Fredrick Nzwili and Abigail Frymann.

The recent repositioning - to favour the decriminalisation of abortion and call for access to abortion for victims of rape, incest and where the mother's life is at risk - is to be used as a blueprint for Amnesty's international lobbying work, a spokesman has confirmed to The Tablet, referring to abortion as a "right".

"It's about applying a right universally, globally, that women should be able to seek these safe and legal abortions. We identify countries where the rights of women need this particular focus and where Amnesty can bring its influence to bear."

AI's lobbying on abortion forms part of its Stop Violence Against Women campaign, its largest international campaign, which covers domestic violence, forced and early marriage and rape as a weapon of war. 

However its effectiveness in these areas may be diminished if Catholics withdraw their support, as Kenya's bishops have already done. "If I am going to fund a programme that is pro-abortion, is there any difference between me and that organisation? Absolutely not. Because the organisation is moving towards this direction, the links have to be severed," Archbishop John Njue, Chairman of the Kenya Episcopal Conference (KEC), said at a press conference on Monday at the first national Catholic conference on Aids in Nairobi.

Miriam Kahiga, Amnesty International's co-ordinator in Kenya, fiercely attacked the Church.

She told The Tablet: "The Catholic Church should be least to even talk about these things, because they have no experience in some of these things. They live in cloistered walls."