The draft EU strategy on the rights of the child, which is being considered at the EU level, does not include any provisions at all about the well-being of the unborn child.

Malta’s six MEPs... should lead... on these matters- Tony Mifsud, coordinator, Malta Unborn Child Movement, Marsascala

In 2006, the Malta Unborn Child Movement made written submissions to the European Commission on the draft EU strategy on the rights of the child and, in April 2012, elaborated further on this in writing to the European Health Commissioner.

MUCM also met the commissioner about it on April, 13 and stressed the importance that the EU should concern itself also with the life, health and general well-being of the unborn child.

The commissioner told MUCM that the Commission had no “competence” to go into matters pertaining to the unborn child and that MUCM can work on the well-being of the unborn child with NGOs in the EU.

On March 27, 2012, the European Dignity Watch published a report that exposed and denounced EU funding of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International, the two largest abortion providers in the world. The report uncovered substantial contributions from the EU’s development aid and public health budgets to IPPF and MSI for projects related to “sexual and reproductive health” in contravention of EU law prohibiting support to abortion and sterilisation programmes. The term “sexual and reproductive health” as defined by the EU excludes abortion explicitly.

When, on April 25, 2012, the European Economic and Social Committee opened its debate on the EU cohesion policy for 2014 -2020, EESC president Staffan Nilsson stated: “Citizens’ needs and interests must be at the heart of all Community policies, so it is essential to apply the partnership principle in the EU’s cohesion policy in a way that enables all stakeholders to play a full part.” Surely, the 5.5 million unborn children who are eventually born every year in the EU and all those little children who lost their lives to abortions in the EU form part of these EU stakeholders, even if they cannot, or could not, shout for their rights as others are able to do.

The UN 1959 declaration on the rights of the child, in particular in the third paragraph of its preamble, explicitly affirms the unborn child’s inalienable right to life by declaring: “Whereas 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.”

Similarly, the UN 1989 convention on the rights of the child repeats the unborn child’s inalienable right to life and protection from harm to their bodies.

EU parliamentarians should investigate these matters. Malta’s six MEPs, representing the Nationalist and Labour parties, which are both pro-life and against abortion, should lead in the EU on these matters.

They should join EU parliamentarians Konrad Szymanski, Anna Zaborska, Gay Mitchell, Jan Olbrycht, Nirj Deva and Martin Kastel who organised the Week for Life initiative at the EU Parliament in Brussels last March.