The present debate about the right to life for all from the moment of conception is taking place for three reasons.

The first is the secret plan of the present government driven by absolute liberal and amoral policies to introduce legal abortion in Malta. This time, ministers’ glee in fooling the electorate will not be allowed.

The second is the lobbying efforts by groups of women under the banner of women’s rights. This effort is respectable and should be given due consideration by all since we are all entitled to our ethical and religious beliefs and standards.

The third cause for the present debate is the series of statements by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe during his visit to Malta and his letters to our newspapers.

A shameful interference.

It is highly probable that, by driving this project to a parliamentary vote or to a referendum by the present government, the Maltese, who basically all share the view that life is sacred and cannot be terminated for any cause by humans, would bring about the downfall of the government.

Any attack on the sanctity of life by any lobby group, the government or foreign absolutists is doomed to fail in our country.

Yet, there are potential solutions that soon will be within reach of all women who may, for one reason or another, be driven to desire the termination of a pregnancy.

Let me tell you a short real story.

About a year-and-a-half ago there was a family expecting their first baby.

The pregnancy was actually one of twins. After a few weeks of the pregnancy, doctors realised that something was terribly wrong. The twins were connected to the mother by one circulatory system that was passing through one of the children onto the second twin.

Medical technology will soon be able to create an external artificial womb

In this situation, the first baby, still only a tiny almost unrecognisable foetus, was not getting any benefits of its connection to the mother but only serving as a passage towards the second foetus. One was growing normally while the other was withering away.

In a miracle of modern medicine, the doctors performed an operation with micro-technology on the foetuses who were brought out of the womb and operated upon. Doctors divided the single supply system coming from the mother and created two separate supply systems, one for each of the two babies.

Thence, so individually connected to the mother, the two foetuses were returned to the womb and the mother and children recovered from the operation.

The pregnancy continued until birth and safe delivery of the two children, twin babies weighing more or less the same, having the same healthy state.

The two babies are now almost eight months old and healthy and may soon even be brought to Malta by their parents for a holiday.

Why do I tell this story?

I do so because it contains the hope and the expectation that medical technology will soon be able to create an external artificial womb when unborn babies can, in the future, be brought out of the womb and dependency of the mother even after the first few weeks of a pregnancy.

Whether we talk of eight or 16 weeks it is still not the full 40 weeks that a woman, not wishing to complete a pregnancy, would have to wait under the present legislation (that rightly prohibits all forms of termination of a pregnancy).

If Malta wants to resolve the present debate without testing whether the Maltese would choose their religious and moral beliefs over loyalty to their political party, we should propose a law that would allow termination of a pregnancy, on certain, clearly-defined medical conditions, as long as the child or children are able to develop into a fully-grown, newly-born child in an artificial womb.

This will soon be possible; it is an expensive solution but a very innovative one.

Malta always wants to be innovative in its solutions. This is one place where innovative technology should be applied at any cost. Destroying the unborn child is uncivilised, is wrong morally and should remain legally forbidden since it can amount to murder, to genocide or, certainly, to cruelty. The rights of the unborn child must be defended at all costs.

Malta is a civilised country and should stand up to its beliefs. No life is more valuable to any other.

Mothers not able to carry a child, not willing to do so for good medical reasons or because of rape, would have to wait a few weeks and then be able to leave the child to develop and live through the intervention of an artificial womb. Until then, our laws should remain unchanged.

John Vassallo is a former ambassador of Malta to the European Union.

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