Safe haven for the unborn

A report in The Times on March 19 said that the International Commission of Jurists, an international human rights non-governmental organisation, lately declared that Malta’s blanket ban on abortion puts women at risk of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

It made recommendations to the UN. The prohibition of abortion without medical exceptions, it alleges, meant Malta was failing to ensure women’s right to life and the highest attainable standard of health.

No UN treaty contains mention of a right to abortion

Commenting on the ICJ declaration and recommendation, C-Fam, the Family and Human Rights Institute, based in New York and Washington and which is dedicated to defending life, family and human dignity at international institutions, says that the legal experts cite recommendations of UN treaty bodies charged with monitoring compliance with human rights treaties that Malta has joined.

C-Fam contends that none of those recommendations are legally binding, nor are they authoritative interpretations of UN treaties. In fact, no UN treaty contains mention of a right to abortion or any language that would suggest such a right exists.

The scientific basis for the claims is also disputed. Both the ICJ experts and UN treaty bodies claim that women’s health is endangered where abortion is illegal because women will resort to unsafe illegal abortions.

But there is no scientific evidence that Malta’s laws protecting life endanger women.

The Global Burden of Disease 2010 data on Malta shows a dramatic improvement in overall maternal health.

Malta is one of several Catholic countries that prohibit abortion and have excellent maternal health records. Its laws protect the unborn in all circumstances and at all stages of development, with no exceptions.

The Malta Unborn Child Movement insists that the ICJ should also work for unborn children to enjoy full human rights to life and be protected from “torture” of more than one description and “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”. This, in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which, in paragraph 9 of its preamble, declares: “The child by reason of his physical and mental immaturity needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.”

In 1981, a United States judiciary subcommittee invited experts to testify on the question of when human life begins. Bernard Nathanson, an internationally-known obste­trician and gynaecologist who was a cofounder of what is now the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), as well as other experts sitting on the subcommittee, contended, on the basis of scientific evidence, that human life begins at conception and deserves full protection.

Nathanson owned and operated what was at the time the largest abortion clinic in the western hemisphere. He was directly involved in over 60,000 abortions.

His study of developments in the science of foetology and his use of ultrasound to observe the unborn child in the womb led him to the conclusion that he had made a horrible mistake.

Resigning from his lucrative position in 1974, Nathanson wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine that he was deeply troubled by his “increasing certainty that I had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths”.

In his film, The Silent Scream, Nathanson later stated: “Modem technologies have convinced us that beyond question the unborn child is simply another human being, another member of the human community, indistinguishable in every way from any of us.”

At the time, Nathanson was an atheist. His conclusions were not even remotely religious but squarely based on the biological facts.

The Times also reported that Malta is the only EU country that bans the termination of pregnancies in all circumstances and that the main political parties have consistently supported the ban.

“Abortion is illegal and that is how it should remain – it is nothing less than murder,” declared the former Labour Deputy Speaker and the shadow minister for social policy, Carmelo Abela, who was speaking as the representative of the leader of the Labour Party during the pro-life manifestation at St John’s Co-Cathedral Oratory on February 3, organised by MUCM.

During the manifestation, Mr Abela said that “parents were obliged to do their utmost and protect their offspring from the moment of conception... Society and the State werealso in duty bound to support mothers during their pregnancies and help them provide a good quality of life to their newborns”.

Mr Abela appealed “for better sexual education and regulations to protect pregnant mothers at work”.

When referring to the new embryo protection law approved by Parliament last year, former Health Minister Joe Cassar, representing the leader of the Nationalist Party in the same manifestation in favour of life, expressed his satisfaction that “Malta had a law that assured that every baby was protected from the first moment of life”.

He added that “no law was enough and people needed to be personally engaged in protecting life”.

In her article Redefing Human Rights (The Times, March 27), after questioining the ICJ report, Miriam Sciberras declared that Malta is a safe place for the unborn child.

Considering the above declarations, especially those by the two main political parties just two months ago, it seems quite clear that Malta is indeed a safe country for the unborn child.

Tony Mifsud is coordinator, of the Malta Unborn Child Movement.