Call for morning-after pill for rape victims

A special sitting of the Youth Parliament yesterday approved a resolution saying it should not be illegal to prescribe the morning-after pill to rape victims.

During the session, the "party" Right To Life said the morning-after pill should remain illegal but made available in the exceptional circumstances where women were raped.

The leader of the "party", Edward Camilleri, presented a resolution that dealt with abortion, euthanasia, IVF and cloning.

Speaking about abortion, the youths said the morning-after pill could only be administered by professional medical staff in hospital after it was certified that the person had indeed been raped.

Women who were raped should be given counselling and financial aid to seek professional help that would help them use alternative methods to abortion, they said.

Insisting that abortion should not be allowed, Mr Camilleri said one exception could be made and that was if the woman's life was in danger. Abortion, he insisted, could never be justified to kill an unborn child that had a disability or special needs.

The "party" said it was alarmed at the hundreds of abortions carried out by Maltese women abroad and called on the government to provide explicit documentaries and information to raise awareness about the repercussions of abortion.

Turning to IVF, Right to Life pointed out that Malta, together with Macedonia, were the only two countries that did not pass any type of resolution on IVF.

The government should streng-then fertility clinics that would provide IVF only to married and heterosexual couples that had tried unsuccessfully through all natural means to have children.

However, freezing embryos or using them for research was not to be allowed.

The "party" called on the Church to carry out an in depth debate on issues such as IVF and on the government to bring into force the law on IVF to fill the lacuna.

In a move that echoed pro-life group Gift of Life's campaign to entrench abortion in the Constitution, the youths called for the inclusion of the term "euthanasia" in the Criminal Code because the law only referred to assisted suicide.

An independent think-tank was needed to create public debate, which would eventually lead to the drafting of a law, they said. Although no cases of euthanasia have been recorded in Malta so far, the "party" insisted the law was needed to prevent any subjective interpretations.