When commenting on the resolution on abortion in Strasbourg in his contribution to The Times (May 3) Emy Bezzina made a number of gratuitous statements about the rights of women to have abortions.
He did not make reference to the fact that abortion is not only about the condition of women but also about the condition of the unborn child women carry in their womb. An unborn child is not a wart, or a cancerous growth, which all women have every a right to remove from their body.
He is a human person and, in Malta, has the right to life which is protected by Maltese laws. These are the provisions against abortion in the criminal code of more than 100 years ago, the Children and Young Persons Act of 1980, the Commissioner of Children Act of 2003, and the Domestic Violence Act of 2005.
The Domestic Violence Law specifically includes the unborn child as "a member of the household", as any battered woman, to be protected by law from "any" type of violence.
That includes abortion, which is the worst type of violence against any unborn child.
That the police have so far not used the provisions of this Act to protect also the unborn child from "any" type of violence in Malta, including incitement to violent action, through abortion, to kill an unborn child, says something about law enforcement in Malta and not, as Dr Bezzina asserts, that "Malta has not the slightest right or authority to prevent abortions from happening".
In the past few years Aġenzija Appoġġ, not infrequently with the physical presence, and at times the active assistance, of the police used the provisions of the Children and Young Persons Act of 1980 to issue more than 200 care orders to remove children from the care of their parents because of grave neglect or serious abuse, of any kind.
These measures do not make Malta a "backward" country, or a police state. They show the very high regard the Maltese people have for their children, "before as well as after birth" as proclaimed by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) of 1989.
Dr Bezzina mentions the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
He seems to be oblivious to the proposal made to the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the EU in September 2007 by the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality towards the drafting of the first EU Charter on the Rights of the Child.
The Committee proposed that the family environment should provide a favourable framework for protecting children's rights and that the EU Charter should be rooted in the values and principles laid down in the UNCRC.
The UNCRC, in paragraph 9 of its preamble, proclaims that "the child..needs..appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth".
Abortions abroad also can be prevented because the unborn child has a right to life, wherever. It can be difficult, agonising and traumatic to prevent a woman from commiting an abortion by the force of law to protect the life of the unborn child.
It is equally difficult, agonising and traumatic, though, to issue care orders.
It should be incumbent on Maltese society to invest in a massive educational and promotional campaign to convince women comtemplating an abortion to use the very compassionate, professional counselling, therapeutic, medical and social work services, like fostering and adoption, as alternatives to abortion.
Aġenzija Appoġġ and the Gift of Life Foundation, through its programme HOPE, already provide these services.
As an eloquent lawyer Dr Bezzina could start talking and writing on the special privilege women enjoy when giving life, till birth, to their unborn children.