Amnesty urged on abortion

WASHINGTON -- Amnesty International would risk "its own well-deserved moral credibility" if it were to abandon its neutral stance on abortion, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a letter to Amnesty's secretary-general Irene Khan.

"To abandon this long-held position would be a tragic mistake, dividing human rights advocates and diverting Amnesty International from its central and urgent mission of defending human rights as outlined in the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights," Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., said in a Sept. 12 letter to the London-based Khan.

Amnesty International members have been debating the abortion issue at country meetings since 2005.

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