Amnesty International Urges Dominican Republic to Legalize Abortion

Reference: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/oct/07101808.html

By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

SANTO DOMINGO, (LifeSiteNews.com) - The "human rights" watchdog group Amnesty International is urging the government of the Dominican Republic to legalize abortion, according to the Dominican newspaper El Caribe.

Citing the standard themes of the abortion lobby, Amnesty International representative Camilo Campos Cruz told El Caribe that "in any case the most important thing is to preserve the life and health of the woman".

"In this sense, our organization, what it establishes is that no woman should go to jail for not putting her health at risk, and that the penalties for abortion should be eliminated," he said.

In recent months, Amnesty International has created policies for defending abortion and sodomy as "human rights", contradicting its multi-decade history of neutrality on abortion. In so doing, it has followed in the footsteps of another, younger organization, "Human Rights Watch", which began to lobby for abortion and gay "rights" a decade ago.

Although the organization initially claimed that the policy would only focus on "selected aspects of abortion", Amnesty International appears to support its complete decriminalization in the Dominican Republic.

With the organization's announced change earlier this year, the Vatican severed support for and encouraged Catholics to reconsider their contributions as well.