Trafficking of unborn humans

The Times (July 9) carried a report saying that "A Libyan man was yesterday charged with human trafficking and trying to help five Egyptian men leave Malta illegally on Monday". He was charged also for just "trying" and considered involvement in a "conspiracy to commit a crime". The charge implies that he had the intent to commit the crime, which did not materialise because the police intervened in time to prevent it from happening. The Times added: "The court heard that the men were found a few miles off Malta on a boat".

To me, having an abortion overseas of Maltese unborn children is another form of human trafficking and also a crime. The Domestic Violence Law (DVL) 2005 considers the unborn child a human person, like battered women, to be protected by law from "any " type of violence, including abortion, wherever.

Through abortion overseas there is a "conspiracy", so a "crime", which begins on Maltese soil, between the parents and the abortionist, to kill the unborn child. When the abortionist's "clinic" is on foreign territory, land or ship, s/he is beyond the reach of Maltese law (although we have also extradition and child abduction laws!) but when the abortionist - Spanish, Dutch or whatever - advocates, and offers, free abortion to Maltese women on Maltese soil that is another matter. There you have a "conspiracy", a "crime" committed on Maltese territory, as in the case quoted above, to kill the unborn child. The irony in the human trafficking case is that all the offenders, it seems, happened to be foreigners. Yet, they were charged and sentenced in Malta nonetheless.

Why was the Libyan man arrested and "charged in court for human trafficking" and "conspiracy to commit a crime" while the Spanish and Dutch doctors, in 2006 and 2007 respectively, were left to their own devices and even allowed to appear on state television and give news conferences to advertise their free abortions? Amazing.

And let us not use the "freedom of speech" argument. On October 10, 2007, during the Dutch doctor's visit to Malta, the editor of The Times rightly stated: "This country must not be seduced into thinking that moral codes are relative and that freedom of expression is an absolute right. The right of one person ends where the right of another begins". This holds good also when it comes from EU sources.

All this must put a lot of pressure on the local authorities, especially the police and Aġenzija Appoġġ (the "designated authority" also set up by the DVL), which have statutory obligations to intervene, as early as possible, to prevent the killing of Maltese unborn children, wherever.

The Domestic Violence Commission, set up also by the DVL, should carry out its statutory obligations to advise the Minister of Social Policy to take immediate action, by word and in deed, to provide the necessary financial, material and personal resources to consolidate and expand the existing services being provided to women contemplating abortion, locally or overseas. These are progamme Hope of the Gift of Life Foundation, Dar Gużeppa Debono of Gozo, Dar Għożża for teenage mothers, and Appoġġ's Benniena programme. This is a very effective way of stopping abortions overseas.

The Malta Unborn Child Movement met the commision lately for the purpose of protecting the unborn child. The movement's proposals were also sent to the Minister of Social Policy.

The above story is considered another good reason why many are expecting the Attorney General to explain why the visit to Malta of the Spanish and Dutch medical doctors to advocate and offer free abortions to Maltese women were not crimes against the unborn child, which had to be prevented by the police and the immigration authorities.

(The author is coordinator of the Malta Unborn Child Movement.)