In his ‘I have a dream’ speech at what he called “what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation”, Martin Luther King addressed America. A hundred years earlier, blacks had been promised freedom and equality through the Emancipation Declaration.

But, in fact, through the century, what African-Americans got was segregation, discrimination and lynching, often blessed, often unchecked, by the courts charged with honouring the declaration.

“In a sense, we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a cheque,” he said.

But America defaulted on its promise. The cheque ‘bounced’.

A year after its independence, Malta joined the Council of Europe in the hope and belief that this would safeguard rights.

The European Court of Human Rights has certainly done us good a number of times, such as when it trimmed a bit of the Maltese politicians’ fondness for morphing into judges, condemned cases of insufficient safeguards of immigrants’ liberty and when it admitted its mistake in wanting to abolish crucifixes from State schools in another country.

Lately, Malta has been visited by Nils Muižnieks, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights. In an article on this newspaper last Monday, entitled ‘Need to reform abortion law’, he takes Malta to task, stating that it should allow abortion. He cites a number of organisations that claim that abortion is justified as necessary to women’s right to health and right to life.

I am sure the vast majority of the Maltese populace and their leaders are very committed to defending and safeguarding the right to life and the right to health of any gender.

Recent polls have shown that an overwhelming majority of Maltese are not ready to sweep under the carpet the right to life of the unborn.

Muižnieks’s whole edifice of argument hangs on his ice-cold statement that “after a thorough analysis of how the right to life is interpreted within core treaties, it is clear to me that this right does not apply prior to birth and that international human rights law and mechanisms do not recognise a prenatal right to life”.

Humanity denial is an old tool of the opponents of respect for humanity

He recommends open discussion that should “pave the way” to change the law.

Such open, unbiased and unprejudged discussion would certainly allow the question of who can be deprived of human rights. Depriving unborn human individuals of human rights can only be justified in such a fair discussion by denying their obvious humanity.

Humanity denial is an old tool of the opponents of respect for humanity. Spanish conquistadores tried to persuade the Catholic Church to declare that Amerindians had no soul.

The belief that blacks were less than human turned American, South African and other courts from upholders of human rights into condoners of human wrongs.

The European Court needs to be careful, because it has the force to be, more than a condoner, even an enforcer of wrongs.

What happens when the needs of a human make life difficult for another human, often a family member, too unfairly often a woman? If it leads to a woman’s health problem, society’s duty is not to snuff out the life of the dependent person but help the relative, female or male, by sharing the burden – through tangible deeds and services and not just through protests and words.

Why does the Commissioner for Human Rights discriminate against the unborn in the name of health and equality, considering their rights as inexistent?

Using abortion as a remedy is obvious disrespect for human rights, depriving the unborn of the right to life, to health, to free assembly, to due process, to voice – all, in fact, the Council of Europe claims it stands for – all in one fell swoop.

Really, when we signed on to the Council of Europe we did not expect a capture by the abortionists and humanity deniers at the expense of and over the heads of the pro-lifers and the unborn.

No small print on the cheque said that.

Does the Council of Europe have a dream for a better world?

Charles Pace is a specialist in social policy.

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