In Australia and overseas, a clear gap has emerged between the Catholic Church and secular, pro-human rights groups, in relation to abortion.

Victoria’s ruling Labour Party last weekend officially adopted a policy of decriminalisation of abortion, despite loud opposition from Catholic Labour parliamentarians.

The Catholic voice within the Victorian state Labour Party was over-ruled by pro-abortion feminists campaigning on a “reproductive rights” platform, which favours legalising late-term abortions.

The fight in Victoria coincided with an international controversy over moves by human rights group Amnesty International to adopt a worldwide pro-abortion policy.

A British Bishop, Michael Evans, has threatened to resign from Amnesty over the issue. Other Catholics who have previously collaborated with Amnesty have also been loud in their condemnation of the organisation’s drift on the issue.

Victorian Labour parliamentarian Christine Campbell, a Catholic who was Minister for Community Services in the first Labour Government formed by Premier Steve Bracks in 1999, argued for a softening of her party’s hardline pro-abortion policy.

The policy calls for changes to Victoria’s laws to make abortion legal at any stage of a pregnancy. The policy will be brought in if the Bracks Government is re-elected at next stage election, due next year.

According to present legislation, abortion is theoretically illegal in Victoria, but in practice is widely and freely allowed, under a judicial interpretation known as the Menhennitt ruling.

Mrs Campbell urged her party colleagues to amend Labour’s policy to give greater recognition to the effects of late-term abortions. Supported by several other members, the Campbell amendment urged the party to recognise that advances in medical technology have resulted in babies surviving “months before a full-term delivery”

“These premature babies are sentient”, the amendment read,  “They feel pain and suffering and react to stimuli”. The amendment also noted that Labour’s policy will allow abortion from conception to the time of full-term delivery.

It will also allow “partial-birth abortion”. In a clear sign of fundamental division over a “values” issue, the Campbell amendment was defeated after opposition from prominent Labour leaders, including the state’s Health Minister, Bronwyn Pike, and Women’s Affairs Minister, Mary Delahunty.

The defeat of the Bracks Labour Government at next year’s Victorian state election is considered unlikely by most political observers. Labour’s decision means that Australia’s second most populous state is likely to become the next jurisdiction to decriminalise abortion, following in the footsteps of Western Australia, Tasmania and the ACT.

Meanwhile in Britain, the Bishop of East Anglia, Michael Evans, has threatened to leave human rights group Amnesty International if it approves plans to campaign for decriminalisation of abortion around the world.

With the launch of a new “Sexual and Reproductive Rights Consultation Kit” Amnesty has signalled a new commitment to the campaign. “Amnesty International has been given considerable support from the Roman Catholic Church, both here in the United Kingdom and by the Holy See in Rome,” Bishop Evans said in a letter to Amnesty’s UK director.

“You will find a significant number of Roman Catholics among Amnesty’s members.”  He said “Catholics will give full support to a campaign to stop violence against women but this cannot be at the expense of moving away from Amnesty’s more fundamental campaign to “Protect the human”.

According to Britain’s Catholic Herald, Bishop Evans has been a member of Amnesty for 30 years. He has been active in forging collaborative links between Amnesty International and local, parish-based justice and peace groups. Bishop Evans also composed a prayer for Amnesty’s latest recruitment drive in Britain.

Amnesty was founded in 1961 by a Catholic, Peter Benenson, who died last year. The organisation’s original purpose was to campaign for the release of prisoners of conscience.

Courtesy The Record, Australia

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