un-Catholic, Should we not also be ashamed of the millions of children who are abused are abused in schools, foster homes, parks and ,sadly, even in their very homes by relatives. At least, the Church admits that some of their members did terribly wrong. What is being done about the others?

Mel , Perth, Western Australia

I suppose that it all depends on whether Amnesty is a group campaigning for the release of political prisoners or just another left-wing political pressure group.

If the former, it damages itself if it becomes a platform for other causes, whether worthy or (as in this case) unmentionably evil. If the latter, it should lose its charitable status.

Roger Pearse, Ipswich,

Maggie,
I’m a Catholic, therefore according to you a non-thinker who insults women’s ability to decide etc etc.
Unfortunately it is not just the woman whose interests are at stake. No amount of offensive talk will change that fundamental difficulty. As Catholics we believe we were all put here to flourish and be happy (in the deepest sense) but not at the expense of each other.
Laura,
The Catholic Church advocates chastity outside of marriage, faithfulness within and an acknowledged link between sexual intercourse and procreation whereby any child conceived will be welcomed and loved. It comes as a package, Laura, and it works. It is absurd to blame the Catholic Church for the spread of aids. If its teaching were followed it would not spread.
Rape is a terrible crime. Abortion adds the trauma of transition from victim to perpetrator of a violent act. Rape victims should be offered huge amounts of love and support to get them through the pregnancy and beyond.

Pauline Gately, Weybridge, Surrey

Catholic in London is proud to be a catholic as 'every life is precious' - does this include the thousands of children abused by priests from his / her church - some of whom committed suicide as a direct result ? Proud ? - you should be ashamed !!

un-Catholic, London, UK

Abortion is murder. Every life is precious. I am proud to be a catholic and would never support any organization that supports or approves of abortion in any way.

Catholic, London,

This has been a difficult issue for longer than my 48 years and it's compounded by the fact that historically it does seem to have been men making decisions for women. Women are taking an equal place in society, which is exactly where they should be, but we have to except a simple fact that they are the Mothers of our children and if we want to fight for human rights it has to be for men, women and children together. If religion insists in making the children the issue then there has to be more balance of men and women in thier religion.

David Williamson, coleshill, UK

Well said , Tina, Sean, Nicholas & others , I am glad the thinkers have joined this debate.
Anyone opposing abortion & the womans right to it, insults her ability to decide what is best for her & her circumstances.
No way would we have these debates or opposition if the MEN HAD THE PREGNANCY, plus the physical care of a child for the next 18 years.
They have always been able to skip off leaving the woman with the problem to sort out on her own.
Many of the men here will be dogmatic, single or unable to have children, explaining why they feel abortion is wrong.
Seeing the dreadful gun toting kids on the streets nowadays, brings the responsibilty home loud & clear.
Where are their fathers ???
I tell you , abortion is a very responsible preference to that.

Maggie Millington, Brittany , France

Yet another insane view by the Catholic church. So far they support the spread of aids by promoting anti-contraception views, overpopulation of the planet by the same means and now forcing victims of rape to give birth?! It's one thing for a stupid teenager to forget to use contraception, quite another for a rape victim. What do they think women are? Free baby machines?

Laura, London,

So the people who are against abortion in these cases want women to go throuigh the immense suffering that an unwanted child can bring? That's heartless. Abortion in these circumstances isn't.

Chris, Epsom,

As long as there are abortions, slaughterhouses, hunting fields, fur farms and the death penalty, we will continue to have homicides and wars.

Brien Comerford, Glenview, United States

The problem of victorious raping armies has been with us since the birth of time and there was little that could be done but today there is an answer!

DNA.

Every soldier in every army should have his DNA taken for identification. Then after a war paternity could be established and his child given to him to care for. The raped woman could hand the child she did not ask for or want back to the rapist for good.

In other words the child of the rapist becomes his life long responsibility not of the woman he raped.

This could be put in force immediately in civilized societies but again in less civilised countries the raped women could have the DNA of her child taken and eventually the father could be traced and the child given back to the rapist.

.
A start could be made by adding DNA of every man on every passport and a suitable to the Geneva Convention rules of war and overseen by The United Nations

This would put a swift halt to this horrific barbaric practice.

Jane Thorpe, Auckland, New Aealand

Keep God out of it . & empower women to make the decision that is best for them.
No if's & but's the days are gone when men could tell women what to do , trust the woman's judgement more, this has nothing to do with God.
A free country should have choices & this is one of those choices.
Insisting a women spends 9 months with a baby growing inside her body, when she has said she didn't want it , abuses her fundamental rights , it's pure oppression of which she , nor her body , will ever recover.
The church does not say anything on that.
Amnesty must stick with their original policy of human rights & not be swayed ever, by men or the church.

Maggie Millington, Brittany , France

To michael, harrogate, uk:

From the point where the fetus could breath properly on its own if outside the womb.

1st trimester: can't do that = only human in potentia

Tom, London,

The difference between abortion and execution?! Well in this country one is legal and the other is not.

The reason abortion is legal is that those with the background and education necessary to fully understand the issue have advised the government that it should be.

My guess would be that the vast majority of posters here (including those who are pro abortion) do not have this same extensive knowledge of the issues involved, and that includes me.

For now I will stick with the judgement of those who know more than I and support both Amnesty International and those women who chose to have abortions.

It should be remembered that no woman undertakes this procedure lightly and that in all likelihood the suffering of the mother is greater than that of the terminated foetus.

dave, worthing, uk

a note for Tina and Ben: if not at conception, at what mysterious moment before birth do we become human? Any ideas?

michael, harrogate, uk

I have to side with the Bishop in this instance. For all the education contraception given in Britain still it has the highest level of abortion in Europe.

The strange thing is that if a child is born prematurely then everyone goes "ga ga" and does everything to rightly save the child. The same woman could have gone into an abortion clinic that same week and had the child aborted and no one would bat an eyelid, no howls of how can this happen.

True to form the left wing chattering classes on the thread mock someone for doing what he believes is the right thing.

I for one will no longer support Amnesty International

Seán , London , England

It's true there are awful abuses everywhere including, as recently frequently publicised, the Catholic Church. Yet the venom unearthed from underlining sound helpful teaching has to indicate where reform is also most necessary.

Father Bryan Storey, Tintagel, UK

God thought humanity a cause worth getting more than intellectual about. He thought it's parlous state a cause worth sending His only Son to die for.

God describes as the fool the one who 'in his heart has said that there is no God'.

Those who try to blank God out of their thinking either cannot see the mess that humanity (including themselves) is in, or they don't want to be answerable to Him for the things in their lives they know He would not wish to continue.

David, Bristol, England

The people who attack abortion as murder don't seem to realise that, at least up to a certain point, a foetus is just a cluster of cells and no more a human, or even a sentinent being, than stem cells. The difference should not need spelling out, yet it always does (read Tina's post). Amnesty help people who need iti including rape victims.

Ben, York,

Anyone who can tell a raped, beaten women that she must carry the fruit of that horrendous experience to term, only because they 'believe' god wants it that way should simply be ignored and forgotten.

Thankfully, we are beginning to see this happening. Let the Reverend go, there are plenty of us out here who want to see people helped and protected, regardless of unfounded superstitious beliefs.

Nicholas Ord, Guildford, Uk

Amnesty has cut its own throat by allowing abortion. How is it going to oppose the death penalty now? The argument for abortion is that the foetus is not really a human being, so the woman has the right to kill it. Wasn't that the justification for the Holocaust? Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, the paralysed and so on were not really human, so could be used for experiments or killed. I look forward to the first President who uses the death penalty saying people who oppose the government are not human, and he has the right - granted by Amnesty - to put them to death.

Keiran Proffer, London, U.K.

Good riddance.

And, lets make sure these Catholic idealogues are rid of every board of every major organization dealing with humanity issues that are reality based.

Let they play make believe with the white fool in Rome and worship their make believe "gods" and false idols.

F.S SUMMERS, LONDON,

The Catholic Church is a theocracy and hypocritical - it still denies its part in the Holocaust and the murder of 500,000 Serbs, Jews and Roma - see www.vaticanbankclaims.com
after Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have come to terms with their past, the Pope still holds out, why?

Ivan, Washington, US

My congratulations to the International Committee of Amnesty on it's principled decision to defend women's right to abortion when their health is in danger. Good riddance to the Bishop who represents a disgusting church totally discredited for infringing human rights, by condoning and protecting paedophile priests, and other clergy who serially abused countless children over decades. In my view this church have forfeited the right to have any say about the welfare of childen whether born or unborn. My subscription to Amnesty, small as it is, will be doubled !

Dennis Hunter, London, UK

I agree with the bishop: I have certainly supported Amnesty in the past because they have done important things, but they have been hijacked by the so - called "pro choice" lobby who will no doubt now present us with hard cases to support their cause. Abortion is the deliberate ending of human life, no matter how you dress up the act with language like "termination" and "humane" and "foetus". Amnesty has completely compromised itself, an organisation set up to speak out for those with no voice.

michael, harrogate, uk

What I have nerer understood is why the Church considers that a foetus which is the product of one of the most vile of all crimes, rape, or even worse, father-on-daughter incest, is as sacred in the eyes of the Lord as the foetus that results from a loving, equal and consensual relationship. I thought there was something in the Bible about "misbegotten". Can anyone enlighten me? Why is all life considered scarosanct, even the foetus which a 13-year-old child is carrying after her father has raped her? And don't tell me that hardly ever happens! Ask any policeman, particularly in remote and backward communities.
In rural France until relatively recently people were aware of two things: that the pirest's "nephew" was in fact his son (courtesy of his housekeeper), and that the boy with learning difficulties was simultanerously the son and grandson of his mother's father....

J.Fletcher, Canterbury, UK

The Catholic Church works hard to prevent the use of condoms in Africa which could greatly reduce the spread of aids in that country - purely for reasons of politico-religious dogma. For similar reasons the Catholic Church has always tried to maintain their tradition of women being always subject to rule by men (of Catholic persuasion). Like all other religions, the reality of Catholicism is one of political domination.

We shall never have a just and free society until we can rid ourselves of religions - these terrible perversions of human activity, with their corrupt and self-serving priests.

Sean Shalor, Coventry, UK

When someone at the end of their life has no brain activity or consciousness, they are considered dead, even if they have a circulation. The same goes for an early foetus, it is not yet a living person as it does not have a functioning brain, nervous system or consciousness. Contrastingly, a woman is a totally sentient human being, with rights and needs.

Amnesty have made the most humane decision by putting the needs of living human beings first. There is no reason why this charity should feel any pressure to bow down to the Catholic church. The Christian response to create the least human suffering in any situation, and in some cases abortion is the correct choice.

The phrase "unborn child" comes from those who are against abortion. They would like it used for all foetuses but it can only truly be justified for third trimester, viable babies.

Tina, South Wales, UK

A human rights organisation that denies the most basic human right - a bit odd don't you think?

I guess Amnesty International has been hijacked by the smae left wing, tree hugging liberals who seem to infest so many of the NGO's these days. Oh well... at least I won't ever have to consider supporting them in future.

Andrew Brown, Derby, UK

Ian from Solihull ,for me, ranks the same as fairies and dragons.I don't know him so he does not exisit. What a very rude comment he did make.

Let him see the end product of an murdered baby extrated from the womb in a violent manner. Then he will understand Humanity.

And I am not afraid to put my full name to this message, unlike Ian from some where in Solihull, or may be he is just a figment on his own imagination , awaiting to be aborted.

Patrick Walesby, Hereford.,

“Our policy reflects our obligation of solidarity as a human rights movement with, for example, the rape survivor in Darfur who, because she is left pregnant as a result of the enemy, is further ostracised by her community,”

Does this statement not suggest that a large part of the problem lies within the communities, and their attitudes to rape, themselves? She might have been left pregnant by the 'enemy' but now we are also granting the enemy closer to home equal powers of destruction. One killed, one injured - victory to the enemy all around.

Mark Banks, Sutton,

Dragons, fairies, bishops, gods.
They all exist in the minds of people who want them to exist and nowhere else.
Humanity - now that is a cause worth getting intellectual about.

Ian, Solihull,

Of course. What else can one do in the terrible circumstances?

Father Bryan Storey, Tintagel, UK