The Prime Minister is becoming notoriously good at doublespeak, the latest being the government’s ‘stand’ on abortion. It is not a stand.
According to the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner, who evidently thinks ending unwanted pregnancies is a human right, “The very restrictive domestic legislation that criminalises abortion in a blanket manner jeopardises the full enjoyment by women of a number of their human rights”. Presumably, Nils Muiznieks does not think a foetus may have rights too.
He welcomes the public discussion that had preceded the introduction of the over-the-counter emergency contraceptive pill, described by some as abortive, but says he is struck by the fact that abortion remains a taboo issue. So he called for an informed public debate on abortion in a letter to Joseph Muscat.
The Prime Minister appeared to give a clear reply. He said the government did not have the political mandate to open the debate and neither did it have the support of public opinion. That was not a position based on principle.
Then he said the government nevertheless intended to “continue to widen the debate” on sexual and reproductive rights, which are invariably linked to abortion. Contradictory? That’s the Prime Minister for you, riding on the resounding majority he received at the June election.
Strangely, he spoke of lacking a mandate to “open the debate”. That was not exactly what Equality Minister Helena Dalli said when the Women’s Rights Foundation called for a debate on abortion: “We’re ready to listen to civil society and see how we will be moving forward.” Which means nothing or everything.
This newspaper has long sounded the alarm bells that abortion looks like becoming the final frontier. After this government made a mockery of the institution of marriage and promised the gay lobby what cannot be, abortion appears to be a natural development in the growing list of so-called civil rights, which are not human rights at all.
Abortion is murder, no matter how you package it, most especially as a ‘reproductive right’.
Clearly, the Labour government, populist as it is, will not step into the abortion minefield but it has felt the water in the morning-after pill debate and knows the idea is supported in some quarters. Labour more than successfully exploited gay rights to the Nationalists’ disdain and may see abortion as the emerging new ‘right’ on the horizon. For expediency and political correctness, it is called a reproductive right, even though it actually annihilates reproduction. Labour also pretends not to debate it but would listen.
The pro-choice lobbyists do not need a mandate to debate abortion. They have a right, and this is a real human right, to put forward their views, knowing that politicians will be sitting on the fence, ready to pounce.
They also deserve an answer as abortion is a moral issue of the highest degree. Experience shows that our society has been rather insensitive to moral issues, particularly when they concern corruption, sleaze and good governance. We cannot have the same indifference from the “public opinion” quoted by the Prime Minister.
Abortion points at the moral compass of the country, lacking as it is. This is a matter of individual morality because responsibility for the unborn, the weakest citizens of all, is on everybody’s shoulders.
This is a Times of Malta print editorial