Pre-empting abortion

Last week I was once again on the streets of our beautiful country to meet people in our towns, busy with their daily chores, or at their place of work.

Dr Delia is the Leader of the Opposition

This direct contact with people is essential for the Nationalist Party to return to its roots, embrace closely the cause of the people and represent their aspirations for political solutions which, indeed, respond to them.

One young man I met asked: “Why is the PN making such a fuss about abortion?” and his question requires a detailed reply.

Abortion equates to the murder of the most innocent and the laws of our country expressly prohibit it. The extraordinary majority of the people of Malta and Gozo are vehemently against it. This translates into a duty to pre-empt any attempt by the government to introduce abortion in our country.

The above should lead us to think that we should have no concerns that the government of this country could be planning to fragment or weaken the legal guarantees that pro- tect the unborn. This is not the case at present.

We cannot lower our guard with this government. In reply to a statement by Nils Muiz nieks, the Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, our Prime Minister has recently declared that his government did not have a mandate to consider abortion in Malta.

We should be reassured then, right? Not exactly. Politics is about track records and the Prime Minister has indeed a track record for including “new” proposals by stealth. We can mention the sale of European Citizenship, the privatisation of our energy supply, the squandering of prime public land for the supposedly American University and the sale of three hospitals to Vitals for a measly sum and a mega penalty for us to take them back.

Muscat’s words are therefore worth the buzz of a fleeting moment and little more. Added to this, we have recently observed several moves from government which point to one and the same direction – the fragmentation of the guarantees against abortion. The government is doing this in its usual crafty way through three main means.

First, it is taking opportunities to delete or weaken wording in associated legislation referring to abortion. This is clear to all in the recent discussion on the domestic violence bill, where we saw the deletion of the protection of the unborn. The Nationalist Party will denounce and stand up against these advances in Parliament.

Secondly, we saw the government’s opinion leaders and ministers introducing an element of conditionality or doubt on abortion, opening a window in the so-called ‘particular cases’ or hinting at the virtues of an ad hoc system where we see the ‘merits’ of a case – as if there could be any merit in a murder.

Thirdly, the government is actively promoting the challenging of public opinion on the matter. Recent surveys indicate an 80 per cent against abortion. You would think that this should remove the issue from the top items on the minds of our public broadcasters, right? Not so. PBS has covered the issue no less than 10 times in the last few weeks, excluding declarations from the Nationalist Party. Recently, we have also seen dedicated features exploring the circumstances that would justify an abortion, including on the flagship PBS programme Dissett led by TVM’s own Head of News.

If the Labour Government has nothing to hide, then it should take a clear stand in favour of life from conception to natural death. Anything short of that will continue fuelling dangerous speculation about the destiny of the most vulnerable and the values we hold most dear.