Abortion is not a human right

There is a clear attempt to promote abortion worldwide as a human right. The attempts made by the Swedish MEP Brigitta Ohlsson to pressure pro-life countries to accept their views on abortion are scandalous but not surprising. Like Rebecca Gomperts who came to Malta on her PR campaign for abortion, these promoters of death fail to accept that most Maltese women do not subscribe to the wholesale lie that somehow abortion will make them more emancipated.

Abortion is the wilful killing of another innocent human being. It is the imposition of a person's choice over another with the justification given being that the child is unwanted. Those who are attempting to politically pressure our island into accepting abortion as a human right fail to see the fallacy of their position.

The unborn child is accepted as being scientifically human in nature and design. This is not a moral or religious belief but a scientific fact. We have heard a number of arguments brought against the unborn child but nothing stands out as defectively as the theory proposed by some who claim that human life does not begin at conception. If the unborn child is not alive at conception, then when does it come alive? Or as an anonymous author once put it: "If it isn't a baby, then you aren't pregnant, so what are you aborting?"

Human rights are for humans. To advocate that abortion is a human right is contradictory. It claims that the unborn child is not human. There is a clear attempt to promote abortion worldwide as a human right. Abortion destroys the lives of many. It eliminates the life of the unborn child and destroys the future of the mother. Our experience here in Malta has brought us in contact with many women who have been fed the lie that abortion will make them un-pregnant but they have lived the hard reality of the consequence of that decision on their own. Each life ruined by abortion is one too many.

To truly understand abortion we need to listen to those women who have experienced it. A number of women will not come forth to express their experience for the simple reason that the abortion was their choice; they were led to believe it was "their right" to abort and they now do not feel they have the right to reveal their pain. However, there are women all over the world who are finding the courage to voice their experience. Their sharing shows us that their experiences are very similar and the consequences they are enduring after an abortion are devastating. The pain the woman experiences is excruciating, to say the least.

If we truly wish to allow the woman to have the right to choose then it is our duty to inform her of what the consequences of an abortion may be. Only then are we empowering a woman to decide and to make the right choice.

Misinformation or the lack of it only hinders our capacity to make the right choices. Today's woman is being disempowered and should not be misled by the state to make her believe that she is being given what she needs. Society is washing its hands, thinking it has found an easy way out and worse still, protecting itself in case there are detrimental consequences by making sure the responsibility is not that of society, but the woman's, since it was "her choice".

Looking at it from this perspective, we truly believe that those who most enforce abortion know the truth and yet still, consciously or unconsciously will harm the woman, denying and stalling her growth in life where she is able to truly protect, nourish and make life-changing choices that will leave a positive impact on the rest of the world.

If we believe the lie that abortion is our choice, then we will be taking full responsibility for that choice and its consequences on our lives. It takes a village to raise a child, and a village to convince you that an abortion is your right, but few in the village will shoulder your pain after "your choice" of terminating a pregnancy.

This article was written on behalf of Gift of Life Foundation.