AMNESTY is iconic. It’s venerated. It’s one of those organisations you just don’t knock. It would be like kicking Lassie or throttling a Teletubby.

But the evil of the Catholic Church knows no bounds. Now, according to The Times (inter alia), hundreds of thousands of schoolkids whose parents happen to subscribe to that barmy doctrine have been told they shouldn’t belong to Amnesty or raise funds for it “because of its new stance on abortion”.

The 2,323 Catholic primary and secondary schools and 16 Catholic sixth-form colleges have been written to by Roman Catholic bishops in England and Wales, “advising them that membership or affiliation to Amnesty International has become ‘very difficult’ because of the organisation’s decision this summer to back the decriminalisation of abortion. They said they should no longer belong or be affiliated to Amnesty groups, and must also stop raising money for Amnesty,” says The Times.

The letter was penned by the Archbishop of Birmingham, Vincent Nichols, who is the head of Catholic “education”, and Bishop Crispian Hollis, chair of international affairs.

The pair say they recognise the good work Amnesty has done over the years (big of them), but “any undermining of the fundamental right to life from its defenceless first beginnings is too important to be ignored” – even if those “first beginnings” are a few cells that by any stretch of the imagination cannot have begun the process of any degree of basic awareness, let alone cognition.

Let’s just be clear. Amnesty is not campaigning for access to abortion as a basic human right, but is merely saying it is acceptable in certain circumstances and “within reasonable gestational limits”. The imbeciles of the Catholic Church say that this, nonetheless, “compromises the fundamental right to life”. They ignore the fact that a bundle of cells or even a foetus cannot have any rights; they ignore the fact that it can often be the life of a thinking, aware, fully formed human being whose right to life is being compromised if she has to take a pregnancy to full term.

“Amnesty International’s position is not for abortion as a right but for women’s human rights to be free of fear, threat and coercion as they manage all consequences of rape and other grave human-rights violations,” said Amnesty’s Kate Gilmore back in June, when this first blew up.

The press release that contains those words, linked to above but again here for your convenience, is worth a read. Make up your own mind. Which organisation comes out on the moral high ground?