Flyer

Issue date: 3/2/07 Section: News

Lewis students are pictured in Alabama on the trip to protest School of the Americas, a STAND associated event.

In October 2006, as a result of Amnesty International beginning to debate their stance on abortion, Lewis University made a decision to abandon their relationship with Amnesty and replace it with STAND, a group of their own creation. STAND is an organization much like Amnesty, fostered to advocate social justice. Furthermore, STAND is a group that is comfortable in the gray area of the abortion issue that is so often seen as strictly black or white.

For years, Lewis had been affiliated with Amnesty International, a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights. In 2005, Amnesty's International Council Meeting agreed to consider adopting abortion as a universal right as part of an ongoing process to develop Amnesty's position on "sexual and reproductive rights" into a policy against sexual violence and rape. It wasn't until 2006 that Lewis made the decision to end their relationship with Amnesty.

"Particularly, as a Catholic and Lasallian institute, we didn't think we could belong to an organization that supported abortion," said Adam Setmeyer, University Minister and Coordinator of Retreats and Social Justice Education at Lewis. According to Setmeyer, also the moderator of STAND, the former Amnesty group discussed whether they should join various Catholic groups similar to Amnesty such as Pax Christi, but decided that Lewis really needed its own human rights organization. "It's something we just created because we couldn't find any existing organization that really fit our needs and desires after we moved away from Amnesty," said Setmeyer.

The formation of STAND was approved by Brother James Gaffney, President of Lewis University. Br. James also wrote a letter that informed Amnesty that Lewis was ending their relationship with them and also encouraged Amnesty to reconsider the stance they are taking.

According to a press release Amnesty issued Nov. 20 of 2006, the organization is currently consulting its two million members in 74 countries over whether or not it should "expand its policy on sexual and reproductive rights." The release said it is under discussion whether to develop policies on access to health care related to complications from abortion; access to abortion in cases of rape, incest, sexual assault or risk to the woman's health; and removal of criminal penalties for abortion providers and those who seek abortions.

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