A senior Roman Catholic bishop has resigned from Amnesty International in a row over the human rights group’s new policy on abortion.

The Right Rev Michael Evans, the Bishop of East Anglia, stood down after 31 years in protest at support for abortion facilities in developing countries. His highly critical comments come as thousands of other Catholics who belong to Amnesty are considering resigning after the policy change at a meeting last week.

The organisation’s international committee voted to support the decriminalisation of abortion and women’s access to legal and safe abortion facilities.

But Bishop Evans, 56, who recently composed a prayer that has been printed on postcards for an Amnesty campaign, said that Catholics would find it difficult to support a human rights group that advocated violence against unborn children.

“Very regretfully, I will be ending my 31-year membership of Amnesty International, which included several years on the British section council and its religious bodies liaison panel in the 1980s.

“Among all human rights, the right to life is fundamental and this decision will almost certainly divide Amnesty’s membership and thereby undermine its vital work,” he said.

The bishop added that the Catholic Church shared Amnesty’s strong commitment to opposing violence against women. “Appalling violence must not be answered by violence against the most vulnerable and defenceless form of human life in a woman’s womb,” he said. “There is no human right to access to abortion, and Amnesty should not involve itself even in such extreme cases.”

Bishop Evans joined the group in 1976, a year after he was ordained a priest. Amnesty International was set up in 1961 by a Catholic convert, the lawyer Peter Benenson, to fight for the release of prisoners of conscience and to press for fair trials for political prisoners.

Traditionally, the group has shied away from the issue of abortion. However, campaigners have argued successfully within Amnesty that abortion is a fundamental human right, particularly when rape is being used as a weapon of war, such as in the conflict in Darfur.

The bishop’s decision to leave the organisation comes two months after the Vatican urged Catholics to recon-sider their support for the group. The Church, which regards abortion as murder and never justified, has urged Catholic organisations to withdraw their support for Amnesty over the policy.

Amnesty’s International Executive Committee adopted its new position on abortion in April of this year. The group formally accepted the new policy at its annual meeting in Mexico City last week. The decision is automatically binding for Amnesty’s members in each member country, including those where abortion is illegal.

On Friday the organisation said that it would work to “support the decriminalisation of abortion, to ensure that women have access to heathcare when complications arise from abortion and to defend women’s access to abortion . . . when their health or human rights are in danger.”

Cardinal Renato Martino, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in the Vatican, said that Amnesty had “betrayed its mission” by abandoning its traditional neutral policy on abortion in favour of a woman’s right to choose. “It is never justifiable to take an innocent human life,” he said.

Abortion is legal in most European nations, with the notable exceptions of the largely Roman Catholic countries Malta and the Republic of Ireland. In most African and Latin American countries it is permitted only in cases of rape or when the mother’s life is in danger.

The Islamic world is even more restrictive, with the exception of Tunisia, which allows abortion during the first three months.

As the largest and most influential human rights group, Amnesty is now likely to put its legal expertise and lobbying power into helping to shape international treaties and agreements that favour legal abortion.

Kate Gilmore, the London-based executive deputy secretary-general of Amnesty International, said that the group simply supported “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”.

“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,” she added.

Right and wrongs

— In 2005 Amnesty drew criticism when it compared Guantanamo Bay to Joseph Stalin’s labour camps, where millions of people were tortured and murdered

— Francis Boyle, a former member of the Amnesty International US board of directors, left because of disagreements about the coverage of human rights in Israel

— During the 1991 Gulf War, Amnesty had to withdraw allegations that Iraqi soldiers had killed babies by ripping them from life-support machines

— Some Christian critics claim that Amnesty has a pro-Islamic bias. Amnesty was quick to criticise Danish publishers depicting Muhammad, despite being a defender of free speech

Source: Times database, Amnesty International