Let Gift of Life come clean

The Gift of Life (GoL) foundation is pressing ahead with its campaign to have specifically anti-abortion provisions entrenched in the Constitution. The matter, GoL says, is urgent; it is important to entrench before a new Parliament is voted in. Otherwise, we cannot be sure that the right to life will continue to cover human life before birth.

But is the matter really so urgent, or is GoL making baseless insinuations about some of our politicians?

The GoL campaign has attracted some criticism. A lot of it boils down to disagreement over the aim of tightening the existing constitutional safeguard against abortion. However, some criticism, including that made in this space, is based on a different disagreement altogether: The aim of keeping Malta's anti-abortion laws and environment as strong as possible is shared but GoL's campaign is seen as counter-productive.

Not pointless, mind you, but counter-productive. It will have the unintended consequence of making things, from an anti-abortion perspective, worse.

As Fr Peter Serracino Inglott wrote in a letter to this newspaper recently, we just do not have, currently, the scientific knowledge we need to write a good law. And so steaming ahead and writing up a constitutional provision anyway, he concludes, would not be "prudent". That is, it would be unwise, since, for reasons explored by this column on other occasions, the political consequences might actually weaken the current edifice, not strengthen it. I am aware of no public attempt to counter these reasons with rational argument.

Given the speed with which scientific knowledge is advancing, we might possibly have the knowledge we would need in a few years. Not legislating immediately, therefore, turns out to be important for the very cause of adequate legal protection of life before birth.

GoL insists on the urgency of the matter. Since there is no serious Maltese political party with abortion rights on its programme, however, the urgency needs some explanation. Vague allusion to other countries will not do. We need to be told under which scenarios the 2008-13 legislature might legalise abortion.

Such scenarios will have to go beyond the current mumble, insinuating everything but saying nothing, about a coalition government where a small party might, as a condition of its support, insist on the legalisation of abortion. What government? Which party?

For example, should the PN win the next general election, does GoL envisage any scenario in which Lawrence Gonzi would give in to such a demand? Should Labour win, does GoL have doubts about Alfred Sant's stated opposition to abortion? Why? Even if, for the sake of argument, one thinks the worst of Dr Sant, one still cannot find a plausible scenario under which he would give in to political blackmail on abortion.

Believe, if you like, that Dr Sant is a crude opportunist, guilty of serious political sins for which he shows no remorse. But an opportunist acts for gain or to save his skin. However, there are no circumstances in which legalising abortion, any time between 2008-13, would be to Dr Sant's gain or save his political skin; on the contrary, offending the strong convictions of a vast majority of Maltese voters, on a matter of such importance, would see him destroyed at the 2013 general election, if not before.

Remember, if Labour leads the next government, it will come to power after have been locked out for virtually 20 years. The memory of the short, traumatic 22-month period in office between 1996-98 will reinforce the determination to let nothing imperil the winning of a second term of office. If there is any danger in electing a forthcoming Labour government, it is that it may turn out to be too conservative for this country's needs; it will be hesitant to undertake any radical change, however necessary, if it risks unpopularity.

Any Labour Prime Minister who attempts to legalise abortion will have serious trouble with his own party, if only (thinking the worst, again, just for the sake of argument) out of concern for its electoral chances. If the Prime Minister is Dr Sant, all the doubts within his party about him being a political liability will erupt ferociously.

Even if he does get the measure through his party, he would still need to face the President of the Republic. The current incumbent would create a constitutional crisis. And it is difficult to think of any likely successor (2009-14) who, faced with his own principles and the country, would not as well. After the 1996-98 parliamentary crisis, the idea that a Labour government would even entertain walking into a constitutional crisis is deeply implausible.

In any case, which small party, with any chance of entering Parliament at the next general election, would want to make abortion rights its non-negotiable condition of parliamentary support? Alternattiva Demokratika? It has so strenuously declared itself to be against abortion that, if it were to reverse its position immediately upon entering Parliament, it would lose all credibility - and be destroyed at the next general election.Even thinking the worst, one has to conclude that there is no plausible chance of abortion being legalised, under any circumstances, during the next legislature. In the next Parliament, there will be no party who promised it, no party with a rational interest to demand it, no governing party that would remotely think it could afford to give in to such a demand.

But we do not need to think the worst. Ironically, the 35 or so parliamentary signatures collected by GoL in support of their campaign show there is no need for urgent legal measures. Unless there is an electoral tidal wave of rejection, most if not all of the signatories will be sitting in the House in the next Parliament. It is a further indication that there is no realistic chance in the next legislature of a majority in favour of legalising abortion... Well, unless GoL believes these signatures are not worth the paper they are written on - but if so why is it boasting about them?

GoL should put up or shut up. Let it spell out a rational, grounded case that the next legislature could be ripe for a pro-abortion hostage crisis. Let it come clean about where and whom it has doubts. If it does not, can we conclude anything other than that, for its own self-gratifying ends, it is sowing baseless, deep, dark distrust about unnamed individuals and political parties? Our political discourse is far from clean, but such tactics pollute it further.