Friday, October 23, 2009

Head of Abortion-Supporting Group to Speak at the University of San Francisco

On October 27, the Lane Center for Catholic Studies and Social Research of the (Jesuit) University of San Francisco will host a book signing and panel discussion by Irene Khan. Since 2001, Ms. Khan has been the secretary general of Amnesty International, a “human rights” organization founded in 1961. Under Mrs. Khan’s leadership, the organization has angered Catholics and others by changing its neutral position on abortion to one of support for what it calls abortion “rights.” Amnesty International was founded by a Catholic layman, Peter Benenson, and had received much support from the Church over the years. But as news of the new policy leaked out, the Church responded. On September 12, 2006 the Most Reverend William S. Skylstad bishop of Spokane, representing the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote to Mrs. Khan: “It is with a sense of great alarm that I write to you about the proposal by some within Amnesty International to abandon the organization's traditional neutral stance on abortion, replacing it with an assertive policy of advocating abortion on demand as a "human right." The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops believes a change in policy will erode the human rights of the most vulnerable members of the human family: unborn children.”

Link (here) to the full article at the California Catholic Daily.

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