Only a handful attend public debate

Several hundred peaceful protesters against "the message of death and destruction" of Dutch pro-abortion doctor, Rebecca Gomperts, far outweighed the handful that attended her public debate at Castille Hotel in Valletta last night.

Just before it started, people gathered outside the hotel, red candles flickering, and then spontaneously started reciting the rosary.

When it was over, they were urged to continue praying in their hearts by the organisers, Gift of Life, to stick to the plan of a silent protest and because the issue was not necessarily religious for everyone.

They held posters with the word HOW, standing for Hands off Our Wombs, as opposed to WOW for Women on Waves, Dr Gomperts' pro-choice organisation; and pictures of babies in wombs, asking: "Dr Gomperts is this really nothing?"

Former MP Michael Bonnici, under the umbrella of the Movement for the Rights, Protection and Development of the Unborn Child, had just filed a police report on what he maintained was an infringement of the Domestic Violence Act, which recognises the unborn child as a member of the household and, therefore, requires protection.

He pointed out in his report that the Police Commissioner had the duty to protect the unborn child and should have taken action against Dr Gomperts, preventing her from coming to Malta because she was "inciting murder".

"Pro-choice? And what about the choice of the child," asked a 40-year-old man, with the word "life" taped over his lips. He was a Christian, but this was not just a religious issue, he insisted.

"Just because the rest of Europe was doing it, it did not make it a good idea!"

The protestors dispersed when the debate started, and none of them attended it. Paul Vincenti, chief executive of the pro-life movement, said the message had come across and he had nothing more to say to Dr Gomperts.

"She is a mother and does not believe a child is a child. I find this very confusing," he said, questioning "how you could disassociate yourself from the child growing inside you", adding it was a known fact that abortion doctors were often in denial.

Once the protest was over, the candles were placed outside the Office of the Prime Minister.

Gift of Life did not want to politicise the issue, but called on Opposition leader Alfred Sant to take a clear position on the Constitutional amendment to entrench an anti-abortion clause.

"If he has difficulty with it, he should at least express it, so it can be discussed in Parliament.

"In an electoral year, the Maltese have the right to know his stand on the issue.

"There are people from both sides of the political fence and they need to know what their leader thinks, to be able to judge," he stressed.

Mr Vincenti said Dr Sant's silence on the issue was frustrating and offensive to the unborn child.

Dr Gomperts was invited to Malta by lawyer Emmy Bezzina from the Alpha Liberal Party, who did not do much to stimulate debate but was more intent on cutting short those who wanted to intervene.

They pointed out that the unborn child was conspicuous by its absence in her presentation and that she failed to deal with the anti-abortion issue from the moral and "reason" point of view, attacking it only from the Catholic angle.

She was also contested on her point that the child only acquired human rights when it was born and was not a child until then - the opposite has been scientifically proven, persons from the floor insisted.

Dr Gomperts' gory footage showed images of women who had died from an illegal abortion, but omitted the tearing away of the tiny limbs of the unborn child to be discarded in the garbage, she was told.

The argument heated up at one stage and four persons stormed out, leaving Norman Lowell, Imperium Europa leader, to make his point that no one in the world was aborting except Europeans, who were accelerating the demise of their civilisation just as the Romans had aborted themselves out of the history books.

Faced with a small audience, Dr Gomperts started her address by saying she was sorry people were prevented from entering the building, although this was not the case, and the floor immediately clarified to her that they had had no problems whatsoever.

She made statements to the tune of: "There is no link between depression and abortion"; and when questioned about the relevance of her cause in Malta, given that Maltese women were not fighting for the right to abort, she said she normally worked with women's rights organisations, but there were "none" here.