In reaction to my article of December 13 on ‘Women’s rights’, there was just one valid contribution from the anti-abortion brigade. This came, not unexpectedly, from the former European Court of Human Rights judge, Vanni Bonello.

He pointed out that when I quoted the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights as stating that “abortion is a human right”, Bonello challenged him to say where either the Convention or the Court had declared abortion to be a human right.

Bonello went on: “What the Court said is entirely different. Where the national domestic legislation of a European state allows abortion, then it is a violation of that state to hinder the effective exercise of that right”.

This is precisely my point. For Maltese women to enjoy this human right, Malta must decide whether or not to pass such a law. I took no position on the issue except to point out that, currently, those women who wanted to terminate their pregnancies did so abroad under the strict conditions applying in those countries.

Throughout Europe, every major, civilised, Christian country in the European Union has passed legislation for terminations under strictly defined legal and medical conditions.

As Bonello rightly said, all women who fulfil the criteria can enjoy that human right. Clearly, those who do not wish to exercise that choice are under no obligation to do so.

In the EU, only Malta and the Republic of Ireland have not passed similar legislation. Ireland will almost certainly change its law this year. Should Maltese women have similar access to this right? This is what the debate here should be about.

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