Yet another pro-life organization is urging Amnesty International to stay out of the abortion debate.

Over the past few months, there has been a steady stream of pro-life groups, as well as pro-abortion individuals that have issued statements and letters to Amnesty International, urging the renowned human rights organization to abstain from entering the abortion debate.

They argue that a position in favor of abortion would contradict Amnesty International’s mission as a human rights organization since abortion does not recognize the right of the fetus.

"The failure to see the plight of the unborn for the injustice that it is represents a grave moral blindness, not a sensitivity to the oppressed," said Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, in a statement yesterday.

“If Amnesty International drops its neutral stance on abortion they will have become their own enemy, and become complicit in one of the greatest human rights abuses of all time: abortion on demand," the Catholic priest said.  

According to reports, Amnesty International, UK, has endorsed legal abortion. An International Council meeting of Amnesty International is scheduled for August 2007 in Mexico to decide the issue worldwide.

"If they go through with this, they will have lost one of their strongest allies in the cause of human rights: the Catholic Church," Fr. Euteneuer said.

Peter Benenson, the Catholic lawyer who founded Amnesty International in 1961, "must be rolling in his grave," he added.