A recent effort to invoke the ‘citizen's initiative' provision under the Lisbon Treaty raises a lot of very pointed moral and political questions. Most of which I choose to completely ignore in this entry. As we all know the abortion issue is as controversial as it is nuanced, as it sits where a lot of our rights intersect and overlap; it requires a great deal of political open-mindedness to evaluate the Maltese stance alongside the predominant European trend on the matter, and this sentence means progressively less, and likely bores more, with every additional word.
Because that's not the real story here is it? The whole campaign (Make Noise for Free Choice) reveals a deep lack of understanding of how European politics work, and while it might kick up a lot of sound and fury it will (at best) ultimately signify nothing.
At worst, it will serve to undermine its own stated goal. Firstly, the abortion issue was one of the identified reasons for the first Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. So invoking the Citizens' Initiative on the abortion issue now (there's another Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty due in October) might not be a classic case of good timing. In fact, I would say Brigitta Ohlsson and friends have gotten the old horse-and-cart sequence terribly wrong. The good news is that as far as abortion is concerned it really doesn't matter anyway, the campaign was a non-starter to begin with.
The Citizens' Initiative can only force an issue onto the table, but it will not necessarily sway it in a particular direction. There are significant and sufficient guarantees in place to ensure that Malta (and Ireland, and arguably anyone else by extension) cannot be overruled and forced to introduce abortion. Any Maltese decision to introduce abortion, when and if it is ever taken, will come from the inside out.
In sum, the only accomplishment the campaign can ever claim at the EU level is some measure of noise. What can it do at a local level? It certainly won't empower the liberal cause - which, don't forget, is not a one-issue deal. Malta remains overwhelmingly against abortion.
Most Maltese ‘liberals' are reluctant to endorse its introduction, as illustrated by the local Green party's position on the matter, and a string of surveys. Its continued absence doesn't really constitute a great tyranny, but a calibration of conflicting human rights, based on as wide a consensus as we can hope to have locally.
A central argument of the liberal movement is that minorities should not be denied their rightful freedoms based on mainstream moral values. Given that the parent's rights as a individual are not the only rights brought to bear in this issue, the Maltese stand on abortion remains more than legitimate on a number of levels, not least of which the ‘liberal perspective' - as long and insofar as it reflects ‘the will of the people'.
Malta is neither clamouring for foreign liberation on abortion, nor keen to have ‘choice' shoved down its throat. Indeed, Make Noise for Free Choice will either have no impact on the evolution of a more liberal Malta, or a negative one. A conservative backlash is not out of the question, especially if the Maltese population feels interfered with from overseas.
Therefore, both at a European and local level (and, in my opinion, from both the conservative and the liberal perspectives) this campaign only lives up to its name half way. It is ultimately just noise. It might draw attention as well as cause a migraine, but noise is not a central liberal value.
Ivan Borg has just completed a course in European Studies and is the new CEO of Insite - The Student Media Organisation - www.insiteronline.com