I was amazed to hear on Triple-J an Amnesty representative suggesting Catholics donating to Amnesty put them in a conflict over abortion. That is, Amnesty has moved further toward right-to-choose away from right-to-life. This is my first conflict as I am definitely right-to-life, humans shouldn’t play god, plain and simple that is not a human right we are born with.
I’m not a Catholic but this shift was the final straw for me. After their concentrated effort for David Hicks I feel like Amnesty’s ability to operate in triage mode is all but lost so I’m diverting funds into other causes now instead. Triage would have you look at David Hicks and ruthlessly say well that isn’t a cause worth supporting.
Further you could be mathematical about it and say that there is a high probability that he’s guilty and thus leave Amnesty resources for causes that have much higher probability of being good causes to save 100% innocent people. It’s not that I don’t believe strongly enough in the right to a quick fair trial for everyone (including David Hicks) it’s just that I strongly believe in triage. A huge amount of resource cost seems to have gone into this one matter by my anecdotal evidence. Harder evidence is available.
Amnesty has 193 pages of info on David and his case in the Australian website as an example. Triage would have you use that resource differently, on a larger number of people in need. I think Amnesty has done some great work over the years and I hope they change their minds on this matter so I can start my direct debit again.
One of their best campaigns was Message in The Bottle by Digital Eskimo.
You could argue Amnesty needs the media profile that the David Hicks case brings to their organisation to help them get donations which then allows them to be a pillar and do good things but I think that is a bit of a sellout on the donators (like me) who give to Amnesty because in the past they were there for the low profile people in desperate need.
