The newly elected leader of Alternattiva Demokratika, Carmel Cacopardo, used his inaugural speech to call for a parliamentary discussion on abortion rights in Malta. He said that abortion was a reality in Malta as scores of women were going abroad every year to terminate their pregnancies.

Taking a leaf out of the book of the Youth Parliament in mid-September that called for a national debate on abortion, Cacopardo said that in the light of the “58 Maltese women that procured an abortion in the UK in 2016”, Malta should stop pretending there was no problem.

The Youth Parliament’s initiative on this subject does not surprise me. The Maltatoday attitudes survey in April 2016 had highlighted how the younger generation – those aged between 18 and 34 years – felt on many moral issues.

Eighty-eight per cent of them did not agree with the Catholic Church’s stance on contraception. Sixty-five per cent considered the State should allow people suffering pain from terminal illness the right to end their lives. Thirty per cent favoured abortion for women who became pregnant as a result of rape (this figure increased to 36 per cent for those aged 35 to 54).

There may also be lessons for Malta on abortion from Ireland where it has long been a divisive issue in a once stridently Catholic country.

Ireland is to hold a referendum on legalising abortion next summer.

The Eighth Amendment of the Irish Constitution (“The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees its laws to respect….and by its laws to defend and vindicate that right”) which was inserted in 1983, gives equal rights to the life of the mother and her unborn child.

The complete ban on abortion was partially lifted in 2013 and Irish women can now have a termination if they are suicidal or if their life is at risk due to complications in the pregnancy.

However, the Eighth Amendment is now regarded as too restrictive. Campaigners seeking its repeal want the social changes which led to Ireland becoming the first country to adopt gay marriage by popular vote in 2015 to be extended to abortion, citing the thousands of Irish women who travel abroad for terminations each year and the increasing numbers procuring illegal abortion pills on the internet.

Opinion polls in recent years have consistently indicated strong support for reform in a country which remains largely Catholic, but where paedophile scandals and other sexual abuse by priests and nuns have dented the Church’s authority.

Last year, in response to public pressure urging change, the government established a “Citizens’ Assembly” of 100 people to consider the need to reform existing laws. The assembly consisted of 66 citizens chosen randomly, 33 representatives chosen by political parties, and a chairwoman, a former Supreme Court judge.

Is there a burning need for abortion in Malta on practical or humanitarian grounds? The figures don’t appear to suggest there is

While the government had said it wanted to extend abortion rights in the case of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormalities, the assembly went much further. The great majority recommended that terminations should be allowed without restriction up to the 12th week of pregnancy.

It also said that terminations should be permitted for “socio-economic” reasons up to the 22nd week of pregnancy in cases where a woman was carrying a child diagnosed with a fatal foetal abnormality (meaning it would not survive outside the womb).

Of the votes cast, 89 per cent were in favour of allowing abortion on grounds of rape or foetal abnormality when doctors believe an unborn child is likely to die before, during or shortly after birth. Seventy-two per cent voted in favour of abortion on grounds of “socio-economic reasons”. The lowest level of support was for abortion to be permitted without any restrictions on reasons, although this still attracted the support of almost two-thirds (64 per cent) of the assembly.

The Citizens’ Assembly has proved that there is a strong desire for change in Ireland’s abortion laws and, overwhelmingly, that there is a firm belief that all pregnant women should be given a choice and full rights over what happens to their own bodies.

A cross-party parliamentary committee is considering the assembly’s advice and examining what legislation should replace the Eighth Amendment. Opinion polls suggest that the result of the referendum will be pro-choice.

Should Malta follow the path of Ireland on abortion? If I were an Irishman, I would vote pro-choice. But my readers will be surprised to hear me say that, in the Maltese context, I’m not so sure this is an issue that Malta should, or needs to address. There are important moral and pragmatic arguments to be considered.

The moral argument is clear. Those women who do not wish to have an abortion on religious grounds – “life is sacred and begins at the moment of conception” – are not obliged to resort to abortion. But those who, equally firmly, believe in the mother’s supreme right in all conscience (their  sense of what is right or wrong) to choose whether or not to have a child are entitled to make their own conscientious choice to have an abortion within clearly laid down legal and medical parameters.

I do not condemn anybody for being opposed to abortion. That is their religious, faith-based view and I respect it. The problem is that these people want to impose their morality on all women regardless of what women’s own consciences tell them, or the medical and social circumstances surrounding the pregnancy. Like Islamic fundamentalists, they want to tell women what they can or cannot do with their bodies.

The practical arguments are equally clear. It is a fact that those relatively few Maltese women who want an abortion – perhaps around 100 each year – obtain one by taking a flight to the UK or Italy and having it performed there. This has been the way for decades. Unlike the introduction of divorce in Malta, for which there was patently a pent-up need and no remedy, abortion by those few who want it is already available in practice.

My approach is, therefore, entirely pragmatic. Is there a burning need for abortion in Malta on practical or humanitarian grounds? The figures don’t appear to suggest there is. While I can see that, as a matter of principle, the humanitarian and compassionate arguments to bring Malta into line with the laws of other advanced Western democracies is compelling, my own advice to policymakers – if I were asked for it – would be that this is overridingly a matter for Maltese women to decide.

Maltese women already exercise freedom of choice and freedom of conscience unshackled by the moral paranoia of the ludicrous (mainly male-led) anti-abortion-under-any-circumstances lobbies in Malta. It appears that those Maltese women who want a termination can already get it. But if women feel that this does not go far enough, formal steps to introduce a law on abortion should be examined.

Let the women of Malta decide.