Contact: John Mallon, Human Life International (HLI), 405-720-2575, johnmallon@cox.net

FRONT ROYAL, Va., Apr. 2 /Christian Newswire/ -- "If Amnesty International (AI) drops their 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," said Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, STL, president of Human Life International (HLI).

"It was bad enough they were neutral on the crime of abortion in the first place, but if they drop even that they switch sides to stand on the side of tyrants and genocide throughout history," Father Euteneuer said. "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."

Father Euteneuer was responding reports that Amnesty International, UK, has endorsed legal abortion. An International Council meeting is scheduled for August 2007 in Mexico to decide the issue worldwide.

"The international abortion lobby has been trying to have abortion declared a 'human right' by trying to manipulate UN conferences and international treaty instruments. Thus far they have failed." Father Euteneuer said. "If AI caves to this pressure, it would represent not principle, but abandonment of principle to ugly, bald-faced ideology. It would render every unborn child—especially in the developing world—a political prisoner in the womb."

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

"Peter Benenson," the Catholic convert and lawyer who founded Amnesty International in 1961, "must be rolling in his grave." Father Euteneuer said.

Founded in 1981, Human Life International is the world's largest pro-life, pro-family organization that is dedicated to defending life, faith and the family, with branches and affiliates around the world.