The Malta Unborn Child Movement - MUCM - has been promoting the interests, and especially the healthy development, of unborn children in the Maltese islands and the EU for many years. The MUCM project is about green pregnancies, about loving and responsible care in the womb.
A short article in the health page of The Times (September 6, 2008) dealt with how mood in pregnancy impacts early childhood development, including development in the womb.
The Sunday Times of Malta (September 14, 2008) reported that Maltese psychiatrist Dr Anton Grech was involved, with other EU scientists, in studying the possibility that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are associated with exposure to influenza before birth.
This subject was dealt with at great length at the Conference on Unborn Children by the Malta Union of Professional Psychologists (MUPP), an organisation in MUCM, in December 2006. For this purpose MUPP brought to Malta Professor Van Den Berg of the University of Louvain in Belgium.
Shortly afterwards the MUCM commissioned Dr Ethel Felice, a Maltese psychiatrist, to expand further on this aspect of this subject in another MUCM conference. This is why MUCM is putting great emphasis on the "sustainable development" of the unborn child in the womb.
On May 19, 2006, MUCM sent a digital copy of its first Charter on the Unborn Child to the EU Commissioner for Justice and Security.
The following month the Commission acknowledged in writing MUCM's contribution and commended it for it. MUCM delivered it again to the EU in greater detail in October 2007.
MUCM would like to work more with the EU. MUCM is part of the EU. The EU Commission asked for such collaboration from civil society organisations in the EU when it launched its communication Towards an EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child in Brussels in July 2006.
The drafters of the EU Charter on the Rights of the Child were advised by the Angelilli Report, commissioned by the EU Commission, that the Charter should be rooted in the values and principles laid down in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
The UNCRC, in paragraph 9 of its preamble, proclaims that: "Bearing in mind that, as indicated in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, 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".
The wholesome development of so many millions of unborn children in the EU, so useful for its healthy development, should be accorded top priority on the EU agenda and the first EU Charter on the Rights of the Child. This is why it very sad that when one mentions the unborn child many talk only on abortion - both in Malta and in the EU. This is also wrong.
MUCM appeals to all prospective MEPs, in Malta and in other EU countries, to give their proactive attention and commitment to green pregnancies in all the EU countries. MUCM waits for the time when the EU too will set its vision along this road to have healthy successive generations, in all respects.
It seems the setting up, some months ago, of the European Parliament Members Working Group on Pro-Life Perspectives, headed by MEP Nirj Deva of UK, a former candidate to succeed Kofi Annan as Secretary General of the United Nations, may bring about the realisation of this goal sooner than expected.