The demand by the Women’s Rights Group behind the Morning After Pill campaign for a mature debate on reproductive rights and abortion in schools was part of "an aggressive campaign" to control and engineer the values students received, pro-life campaigner Paul Vincenti said today.

The call was made after a lesson on abortion delivered by the pro-life lobby Life Network Foundation to fifth form students at the National Sports School.

The State school said on Facebook that the students had received a talk “about the gift of life” delivered by activist Miriam Sciberras, which included “very graphic videos of an abortion”.

In an open letter to Education Minister Evarist Bartolo, Mr Vincenti said such a campaign would gradually change Malta’s culture from one of life and hope, to one of death an despair.

He recalled a Gift of Life Foundation campaign in 2005 when a petition of 49,000 signatures was presented to MPs calling on them to amend the Constitution to include a clause that the right to life began at conception.

“We are therefore confident that you will continue protecting the right of all Maltese to positive, fact-based, age-appropriate, ethically correct, life affirming, values via supervision of PSD teachers as has always been the case.

“Untold numbers of students, both male and female have been spared so much confusion and misery because of these positive sessions.

“Thank you for defending the unborn child, whose very dignity and value are being aggressively questioned by a small group of individuals who do not represent the vast majority of the Maltese people,” Mr Vincenti wrote.