In his talking point Who's Out of Tune, Now? (June 1), Justice and Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg persisted in his feeble attempt to convince the country he is actually doing something about the abortion problem.

He accuses the "liberal elite" of being out of tune with public opinion, while branding public opinion as fickle. He continues with this bizarre line of reasoning throughout.

Dr Borg's view of Maltese society was formed during his over-long stay in the ivory-tower-cum-glasshouse Nationalist Cabinet.

Should Dr Borg decide to venture out into the real world, he would be delighted to learn that there is no such thing as a liberal elite. The only elite is the one of which he forms part.

It is impossible to define what type of elite it is. Sometimes liberal, at times neo-conservative, occasionally communist and now, by most people's reckoning, religious fundamentalist. Defining the government's political philosophy seems to depend on what day of the week it is.

Away from the bizarre and elite planet inhabited by Dr Borg, there is a society where over 1,000 women carry a heavy psychological burden. These women are our sisters, our daughters, our neighbours and our friends, whether Dr Borg wants to face it or not.

Dr Borg has guaranteed that they will carry their psychological problems with them to the grave. His constitutional circus act has only succeeded in compounding their shame and maximising their trauma. There will be no other significant impact on society as a result of his ridiculous proposals.

I am amazed at Dr Borg's statement that he "does not think abortion is a common crime in Malta". If I were in his position, I would bend over backwards to find out exactly how many women feel desperate enough to put themselves through the traumatic and immensely damaging experience that abortion can be.

I would want to know their backgrounds and their problems. I would want to know why they feel driven to such extremes. I would want to have all the data possible in order to allow me to provide effective social services covering all aspects of this issue, from sex education to trauma counselling.

If Dr Borg could convince one single woman that abortion is not necessarily the way to resolve the problems of her life, or even have policies that might prevent an unwanted pregnancy in the first place, he would have achieved infinitely more than this constitutional amendment nonsense.

Is this type of logic "baffling" to Dr Borg? Too liberal, maybe? He has already made up his mind about what type of women have abortions. They can probably go to hell, where they belong, as far as he is concerned.

Women who have had an abortion and those who decide in future that they simply cannot face the responsibility of motherhood, have been sent a clear message by our almost exclusively male government.

The message is: You have done something shameful and unforgivable and we are going to shout it from the constitutional rooftops.

Dr Borg's article continues with more public admissions of his failures. He crows over outmanoeuvering those anti-social minorities that politicians might pamper to at election time. Dr Borg offers us a painful reminder of the day he and his colleagues caved-in to the hunting lobby in a desperate bid to regain power at any cost.

If, as Dr Borg argues, the Constitution is a safeguard against anti-social minorities, what about the line in the Constitution about "protecting Malta's landscape"? Does the Constitution go out of the window when the construction industry starts sending in its campaign funds?

In his final act of bizarre smugness, Dr Borg delights in telling us that his proposal will scuttle rulings handed down by the evil European Commission of Human Rights. I have been informed that Dr Borg is a human rights "expert", yet he remains "baffled" by those who refuse to jump on his bandwagon.

This whole episode is totally and utterly beyond the pale.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.