Author: lifenetwork

An anti-abortion rally held in Dublin earlier this month to campaign for the Eighth Amendment to be retained. Picture by Caroline Quinn/PA Wire

 

22 March, 2018 01:00

WHILE the Constitution celebrates the equality of the mother and the unborn child in its Eighth Amendment, we have an obligation to be at our most compassionate, our most merciful, if and when the expectant mother and father and their unborn child require support during a crisis pregnancy.

This support must be more than words. Public resources should be applied in a practical and in a creative way.

Supporting and sustaining a culture of life is in the interests of every generation and it defines us as a society.

We believe that human life is sacred from conception until natural death and that Article 40.3.3, sometimes referred to as the Eighth Amendment, reflects the appropriate balance of rights.

Some people argue that the right to life of the unborn should be a matter of personal choice on the part of the mother.

Others argue that, while they are opposed to abortion as a general principle, they believe that there are some children to whom the right to life does not apply either because they have been diagnosed with a serious medical condition or because they have been conceived as a result of rape.

We wish to state our firmly held belief, based on reason as well as faith, that there is no such thing as a human life without value.

We accept, of course, that death is part of our human condition. What we reject is the suggestion that any person can decide when it is time for another person to die.

The deletion or amendment of Article 40.3.3 would serve no purpose other than to withdraw the right to life from some categories of unborn children.

To do so would radically change the principle, for all unborn children and indeed for all of us, that the right to life is a fundamental human right.

There is no logical or scientific basis for considering, on the one hand, a born child to be a person with all the rights that this involves and, on the other hand, an unborn child to be a non-person.

The distinct identity of a human individual is already present once fertilisation has taken place.

We question why, in public discourse, healthy unborn children are always referred to as ‘the baby’ while those who, in the opinion of some, do not measure up to expectations are routinely defined as the ‘foetus’ or the ’embryo’.

We are concerned that language is being used with the intention of depersonalising certain categories of unborn children in a way which seeks to normalise abortion.

We are concerned that some elements of the Catholic Church’s teaching on the right to life tend to be presented inaccurately.

The Catholic Church has never taught that the life of a child in the womb should be preferred to that of a mother. By virtue of their common humanity a mother and her unborn baby have an equal right to life.

Where a seriously ill pregnant woman needs medical treatment which may, as a secondary effect, put the life of her baby at risk, such treatments are always ethically permissible provided every effort has been made to save the life of both the mother and her baby.

Abortion, by contrast, is the direct and intentional destruction of an unborn baby and is gravely immoral in all circumstances. It is not a medical treatment.

When, sadly, a baby dies naturally in the womb before birth, there is no question of the mother being obliged to proceed with the pregnancy.

There is now only one ‘patient’, the mother. The mother becomes the sole focus of any medical care that is required.

Along with the father, the mother is entitled to the best pastoral care that we can offer, as they grieve the loss of their child.

It is very distressing for a mother to discover that the baby in her womb is seriously ill and, in all probability will not live.

The use of words like ‘fatal’ or ‘lethal’ to describe these conditions implies that there is something definite about the outcome and that death is imminent and inevitable.

The reality is that every case is different and that, while some babies will die before birth, and some will live for just a few hours, others will live for significantly longer.

We believe a lot more needs to be done to provide appropriate perinatal hospice services, which offer warmth, tenderness, nutrition and hydration and, in that way, support parents in caring for their sick children until natural death.

This, rather than the repeal of Article 40.3.3, should be the focus of government policy and it is something towards which we can and should all work.

Rape is an act of violence and a crime. A woman who has been raped needs compassionate care and support.

A child conceived following rape is also a person. He or she has rights, including that most fundamental of all rights, the right to life. Society must similarly extend its support to the unborn baby.

Our hope is for a Church and a society which, while rejecting abortion, reaches out to women who have had an abortion, with a listening ear and an understanding heart.

Most of all, we believe that the common good is best served by a Church and a civil society which, while rejecting abortion, continues to offer women real alternatives and real support.

:: The full 4,000 word text of ‘Two Lives, One Love’ can be read at www.catholicbishops.ie

https://www.irishnews.com/lifestyle/faithmatters/2018/03/22/news/common-good-best-served-by-rejecting-abortion—and-offering-women-real-support-1280972/

 

Brussels March 22, 2018.- On March 20, 2018, the European One of Us Federation has celebrated the Ordinary General Assembly in the European Parliament, in Brussels and has participated in the Week for Life Session.

Once again, representatives of the civil organizations from the  One of Us Federation have gathered at the headquarters of the sovereignty of European citizens. In this same Parliament, the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI)  One od Us presented 2 million signatures demanding the European institutions the protection of the human embryo from its conception recognizing it as One of Us

Participants from 20 countries, including Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria, Holland, Italy, Spain, Slovakia, Portugal, Poland, France, Luxembourg and other EU countries took the floor during this act demanding precisely this protection of life and denouncing the current threats against it as well as the need for greater attention to women in their motherhood and to the elderly and people in the final stage of life.

In this same act the project of the One of Us Cultural Platform was presented. The Cultural Platform aims to give voice to the thinkers and intellectuals of the European countries who defend the values ​​that inspired the founding fathers of the European Union. Their intellectual activities and productions affirm the values ​​that constitute the essence of the European Federation One of Us.

Following the General Assembly, the members of the different national organizations participated in the session of the Week for Life that each year celebrates the Group of Bioethics of the EPP Group and in which One of Us participates actively.

The session of the Week for Life raised the perspectives that should be taken into account in the ethical application of new technologies. The debate centered around the possible representation of robots as juridical persons, the contemplation of a Universal Code of Conduct for them and the adaptation of artificial intelligence in the human body. As conclusions of this session, the speakers denounced “The deployment of scientific and technical advances in areas such as genetic engineering and biotechnology has broadened the scope of our goals. But it has also increased the magnitude of side effects that could even displace human nature to irrelevance. ” In this same sense it was concluded that “in the current scenario of technology, which allows the humanization of the artificial, it is convenient to claim that anthropological reflection and ethics inform praxis, and that praxis does not determine a new anthropology and new ethics The sciences can not be required to impose ethical limitations on themselves or to ask themselves about the meaning of human life. What man is, and what he is allowed to do, is not the result of a reflection of a scientific nature, but a matter of ethical and anthropological order. “

I have read with incredulity the article ‘Need to reform abortion law’ by Nils Muiznieks. I would like to remind people that when we joined the EU a special provision was made that our pro-life laws would not be interfered with. That was in 2003, long enough for people to forget about it. 

We have an Embryo Protection Act too, which protects life from conception to natural death.

I have worked in the pro-life industry since 1991 – that is 26 years. I was the administrator of Life Save the Unborn Child in Central London and I would like to share a few experiences. 

We had counselling rooms where women could share their problems about being pregnant and get the support they needed to make their own decisions whether to keep the baby or not. 

It was highly confidential and I never heard a counsellor divulge a single story about the women they were looking after. 

The counsellors were all voluntary. 

We used to get women who had had an abortion come to us to train as counsellors be able to advise people not to make the same mistake they did. 

One of them had said that she had recurring nightmares where she was on top of a high building and her baby was falling off the edge and, try as she might, she could not save the child.

What does that say about abortion?

A woman lives with deep regret after having had an abortion and needs very tender care and counselling to help her recover from such an unnatural procedure.

Another common post-abortion complication includes depression, which could manifest much later. 

We had Life houses where pregnant women used to live until they had their child. Each house was looked after by a volunteer who was a Life mother. She looked after their needs and made sure they were well cared for. We used to prepare a layette for their babies, provide cots, prams, etc and help them apply for government accommodation. There were five such houses around London.

My job was to raise funds, send speakers into schools and hold Life Sundays when we gave a short pro-life talk in churches and gathered supporters for our cause.

The counsellors looked after the women and babies for the first two years of the baby’s life, providing fresh baby clothes every three months, subsidising nappies and milk and accompanying them to hospital for ultra sounds and subsequently to have their babies. In reality we became temporary members of their family. 

It was beautiful work and very much appreciated by the clients.

I am now a board member of Life Network Foundation Malta and we are doing very similar work. Our recently launched Life Line for women is a 24/7 support chatline.

There is a phone line with allocated times and we offer help for women in crisis pregnancy and negative prenatal diagnosis. We also offer Save One courses for post-abortion healing.

This work takes a lot of love and understanding and clients are invited to call. The service offered is strictly confidential.

Our girls and women deserve help and support not abortion. 

Muiznieks speaks from a cold legal standpoint and finishes his article by saying: Women have the human right to a safe reproductive life, free from coercion. 

He also says: “Malta’s total ban on abortion contradicts the norms of international human rights law, because it denies women a range of fundamental human rights.”

We must remind him that Malta joined the EU with the proviso that anything to do with life would not be interfered with by the EU. 

It is the human right of a woman to have the child she conceived while being given the care and support of a loving family, or failing that the support of a caring counsellor who will stand in for the missing family.

Muiznieks should kindly note that Malta does not need his advice.

We want to be teaching the next generation on the beauty of sex in the right context and not trivialising sex as though it were a toy you could take up and put down. 

Sexual education needs to be taught in context of relationships and commitment.

The direct link between sex and life including early life needs to be clear to our young adults. Restraint, love and respect are values that can enrich relationships and are character building traits as is training to athletes and studying to passing exams.

Abortion will not solve the problem.

It cannot make a girl and boy unpregnant. You cannot erase a new life. It will only make the girl and boy involved the parents of a lost child. Try as you will, Muiznieks, in psychiatric terminology, the body knows and will keep the score. 

The trauma caused by an abortion manifests sooner or later, so I think it is grossly unfair to peddle abortion as a concocted ‘human right’. We need to educate our youths to choose life not abortion. 

Children, wanted or unwanted, planned or not planned, are gifts.

They need protection, especially in their pre-born vulnerable state.

Mary Hilda Camilleri is a retired music teacher who worked in pro-life organisations in London and now with Life Network Foundation.

It seems that the lobby group ‘Catholics for Choice’ are neither Catholic nor really interested in allowing a Catholic the free choice of his or her conscience. What they are really interested in is ultimately bringing in abortion into the country, at whatever cost, which will wreak havoc with human rights. If we are not able to defend the right to life of the weakest of human beings in the uterus or in the laboratory test-tube, the whole edifice of human rights will crumble. We would have dismantled a basic rational tenet of the whole body of our human rights which is the right to life, especially the right to innocent life which is an absolute right. Catholics for Choice is financed by millionaire George Soros, whose sole intent is to bring in unfettered abortion around the world. This brings to mind what the role of the state should be in this case. If the state cannot protect the life of innocent human beings then the reason for its very existence is being usurped and unfulfilled by the very same state and its political masters and their underlings. Therefore, it would ultimately have failed in one of its most fundamental obligations – to protect the weak and the helpless in the face of unjust aggression.

Catholics for Choice purports to allow a woman, or any other Catholic because spouses have a say in this too, to have recourse to their conscience when deciding whether to have an abortion or not. There may be other extenuating factors surrounding the parents’ or the mothers’ lives which could lead one to conscientiously conclude that having an abortion would be the lesser evil in the circumstances. Our conscience is the inner sanctum where we weigh our moral and ethical options and obligations as to what is right or wrong. It is the highest authority guiding our moral actions, for Catholics it is the place where in the quietness of our soul, we meet God. Therefore, it is also for others who are not Catholic! Catholics for Choice are purporting that if a woman had to conscientiously conclude that abortion for her is the lesser evil, they would be morally placated in choosing to have an abortion and absolved from their inner guilt. Now there are several pitfalls here that would render a person choosing this option, to be not only not Catholic, but also manifestly not humane. For Catholics, the Church makes it clear that conscience is the highest form of binding moral authority for a person on condition that it is properly instructed or formed. Proper formation in this respect for the Church means that the individual has to consider the official teaching of the Church on the issue. The official teaching of the Church rests on three parameters. First is sacred scripture, second is teaching tradition and third is the teaching of the Magisterium, which is that of the Pope in unison with the bishops.

There is no doubt that in all three aspects of the above, the teaching is that under any circumstances, abortion is an evil that contradicts both sacred scripture in its old or new covenant and any tradition and teaching of the Magisterium. To ignore this and proceed on emotional feelings alone, would mean that one is not considering a formed conscience but one that is unformed, not through ignorance mind you because that is excusable, but through neglect or carelessness. One cannot claim to be a Catholic and ignore clear Catholic teaching on the matter. Nor can one declare to be a Christian and ignore clear scriptural teaching on the matter. To be an existentialist, putting our existence before our essence or nature, tends to be a fashionable trend today with many who say they are Christian, but can one call himself/ herself a Christian while jettisoning sacred scripture? Also, can one call himself/herself human at the same time rejecting human reason and the rationality regarding our nature? One ought to keep in mind what sacred scripture teaches in John’s Revelation. “I know your works; you are neither hot nor cold. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth”. Scripture is clear; one may be a good Catholic, obey God’s law, and be hot, one might, unintentionally, fail through human weakness to acknowledge God and his eternal law not from want of sincerely trying, and be cold, but one cannot claim to be a Catholic and ignore God’s law, because one would be lukewarm. Being lukewarm means that one is spat out by God from being part of his people! In short, one cannot claim to be a Catholic when one ignores all Catholic precepts. One cannot be a Christian when one ignores all Christian precepts. One can claim to be, but objectively one is not!

The bottom line is that while Catholics should use their own consciences to make decisions, prudential judgements of individuals on their own situation do not set aside the objective moral order. There is an objective moral order so elusive to many in today’s world who make moral subjectivity one of their new gods together with fake news to boot. Other gods in today’s society which impede the proper formation of a person’s conscience are individualism, secularism and materialism. Catholics for Choice is one such organisation which espouses all these vices and as such cannot claim to speak for Catholics nor well-intentioned people for that matter. They only speak for themselves and their ill-conceived intentions to kill innocent human lives.

It is important that the Church must not only proclaim the objective moral truths, but also attend to how people can experience and be formed by these truths. There has to be a pastoral encounter between the Church and those who are struggling to live the Christian life, finding ways to meet people where they are, help them grow in faith and get closer to God. Part of the mercy of God is helping people slowly learn the truth of their situation in the sight of God and with his grace, take steps to reconcile wrong action or thinking! This is the so-called ‘law of graduality’, meaning that with the support and help of others we can slowly and gradually come to understand the objective truth and what God wants from us even when our lives are nowhere close to this requirement. Then we can slowly start to change our lives around to fall in line with the obligations laid out by the truth. The Church needs to have concrete plans in place to encounter, assist, accompany and form people through a process of discernment to achieve an understanding of the objective truth and to grow in faith even in the midst of their own failures, challenges and hopes.

Meanwhile, the so called ‘Catholics for Choice’ and its political and social lackeys, may continue to subvert the objective truth and lay traps for condescending knaves with the sure knowledge that their game is exposed and that in the final analysis, their efforts will not stand up to right judgement, even if it may seem that they have succeeded!

Dr Asciak is Senior Lecturer II in the Institute of Applied Science at MCAST.

Is-Sibt 17 ta’ Marzu 2018: L-Isqof ta’ Għawdex Mario Grech qal li soċjetà li taċċetta l-abort hija soċjetà omiċida, peress li “kull meta bniedem inaddaf il-ġuf billi jneħħi l-ħajja ta’ tarbija, huwa jkun qed joqtol persuna.”

Waqt il-laqgħa ġenerali annwali tad-Dar Ġużeppa Debono, l-Isqof Grech qal li “l-argumenti favur it-terminazzjoni tal-ħajja tal-bniedem fil-ġuf huma fake news jew parti mill-post truth culture.”

Mons. Grech qal li min huwa favur l-abort għandu l-ardir jgħid li lest li joqtol persuna biex isalva oħra. Huwa fakkar fi kliem il-Papa Franġisku li kien qal li “din hija mafja”.

Waqt l-indirizz tiegħu, l-Isqof ta’ Għawdex qal l-ebda raġuni ma tiġġustifika l-qtil dirett tal-bniedem. Huwa kompla jgħid li “hija tassew anomalija li filwaqt li d-dinja tad-dritt qed tawgura li titneħħa l-leġitimazzjoni l-gwerra tiġi deleġittimizzata, fl-istess nifs trid li l-abort jiġi leġittimizzat.”

L-Isqof ta’ Għawdex Mario Grech qal li l-problema tal-abort klandestin ma tissolviex billi jiġi leġitimizzat l-abort iżda billi jittieħdu miżuri soċjali li jindirizzaw il-kawżi li minħabba fihom omm tħossha kkundizzjonata li “toqtol lit-tarbija fil-ġuf”.

L-Isqof Mario Grech qal ukoll li l-abort imur kontra l-ġurament li jieħdu t-tobba biex jiddefendu l-ħajja u li ma joqtlux lill-bniedem b’mod dirett. Fi kliem Mons. Grech “meta tabib jintalab jagħmel abort, huwa jkun jikser din il-wegħda. X’fiduċja jibqgħalna f’tabib li jxellef il-ġurament li jkun ħa?”

Mons. Grech qal li l-bniedem qed jgħix f’epoka ta’ dittatura tad-drittijiet, fejn dak kollu li l-bniedem jixtieq jew irid, qed isejjaħlu dritt ċivili.

L-Isqof faħħar il-ħidma ta’ Dar Ġużeppa Debono favur il-ħarsien tat-tarbija fil-ġuf. Kompla jgħid li din il-ħidma hija meħtieġa ħafna peress li f’Malta qed ikun hemm “vuċijiet orkestrati favur l-abort.”

Huwa ħeġġeġ lid-Dar biex tkompli tkompli xxandar li l-ħajja umana mill-bidu tat-tnissil sat-tmiem naturali tagħha hija sagra u invjolabbli. Qal li d-Dar għandha tkompli toffri kenn, akkomadazzjoni u għajnuna lin-nisa tqal. Qal ukoll li hemm bżonn li d-Dar toffri servizzi ta’ counselling għal dawk li jinqabdu b’tarbija li ma tkunx ippjanata jew mhux b’saħħitha.

Fi kliem l-Isqof Grech, “dan is-servizz tajjeb jingħata wkoll lil dawk l-ommijiet tqal li jkunu ddeċidew li jagħmlu abort, bit-tama li dawn jirrevedu d-deċiżjoni tagħhom.”

L-Isqof ta’ Għawdex sejjaħ it-tqassim b’xejn tal-kontraċettivi “viżjoni miopika u parzjali”. Enfasizza dwar l-importanza tal-edukazzjoni sesswali.

L-Isqof Mario Grech irrakkomanda wkoll li d-Dar għandha toffri akkumpanjament terapewtiku u spiritwali lill-ommijiet li jkunu għamlu abort.

Nhar l-Erbgħa 14 ta’ Marzu 2018, Dar Ġużeppa Debono żammet il-Laqgħa Ġenerali Annwali tagħha li matulha preżentat rapport tal-ħidma tagħha flimkien mar-rapport finanzjarju għas-sena 2017.

Iċ-Ċerpersin tad-Dar, Karl Wright, qal li fl-aħħar xhur Dar Ġużeppa Debono għaddiet minn proċess ta’ tiġdid li matulu evalwat il-missjoni tagħha u kif din tista’ tkun iżjed rilevanti għaż-żmien tal-lum.

Rapport: newsbook.com.mt

When Latvian Nils Muižnieks  took up his position as Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe in April 2012, in his welcome address he said: “It is my intention to keep human rights high on the agenda of European countries and to contribute to the development of more humane policies benefiting both present and future generations.”

Muižnieks was in Malta, a sovereign State,  last November using very tough language against present and future generations of unborn children in Malta.

It is becoming clearer that he came to Malta to give a helping hand to the one or two women’s organisations in Malta who, while declaring that they are neither pro nor against abortion, are doing their utmost to introduce abortion in Malta.

Probably he was pushed,  or lured, to come to Malta to preach abortion, and then proceed further by writing in the local press, “to  start the ball rolling” for the introduction of abortion.

This, after the same women’s organisations succeeded in introducing the morning-after pill  through a very fine subterfuge, through the Medicines Authority and its CEO.  Map is considered abortive in many medical and pharmaceutical quarters, locally and abroad.

They are now trying  to introduce abortion in Malta  by using the powerful position of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights. And Muižnieks is letting himself be used in this way.

At the beginning of February  MaltaToday published the result of a survey on abortion in Malta  which showed an overwhelming rejection of abortion across all age groups. Ninety-seven per cent of those interviewed said they were against unrestricted abortion at whatever stage of the pregnancy.

Yet, towards the end of February Muižnieks was either oblivious to this survey or, worse, arrogantly ignored it altogether and, again, came out, this time in the local press, preaching abortion in Malta against the wishes of the big majority of the Maltese.

The Europoean Union, of which Malta is a member state, does not interfere in these matters in any state of the Union. In fact, when Malta joined the EU in 2004 the Maltese government insisted, and succeeded, in signing a protocol with the EU which stated:

“Nothing in the treaty on European Union, or in the treaties establishing the European Communities, or in the treaties or Acts modifying or supplementing those treaties, shall affect the application in the territory of  Malta of national legislation relating to abortion.”

The Maltese Prime Minster himself came out strongly, lately, even before the result of the latest survey on abortion was published, declaring that the big majority of the Maltese do not want abortion.

Yet,  Muižnieks  keeps meddling in Malta’s internal affairs by dictating what the Maltese should do in this matter.

The six Maltese members of Parliament in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe should  raise up this matter in the parliamentary assembly to have Muižnieks  stopped from flagrantly  continuing to abuse Maltese hospitality.

Our Equality Minister should also come out insisting that Muižnieks should  stop meddling in Malta’s affairs by making known to him the Malta government’s position on abortion, explained  by the delegation which she led,  and which was spelled out in its declaration at a UN Conference on Malta in Geneva in December 2013, which stated:

“The delegation reiterated the [Malta] government’s belief in the need to protect the right to life, including that of the unborn child. It expressed the view that, as human life begins at conception, the termination of pregnancy through procedures of induced abortion at any stage of gestation, was an infringement of this right.

“Malta, therefore, could not recognise abortion or any other form of termination of pregnancy as a legitimate measure of family planning. Where the life of a mother was at risk, a medical intervention to save her life, even if that could result in the death of the child, was not precluded.”

In his article, Muižnieks  said he is “aware that some argue in favour of restrictions on access to abortion on the basis of a purported prenatal right to life”. Then he adds: “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.”

Definitely he is not informed and he should be considering his position as a CoE commissioner.

He should know that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which entered into force on September 2, 1990, in its preamble declares very clearly that “bearing in mind that, as indicated in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth”.

Muižniek ignores this also and keeps harping only on women’s reproductive rights.

He says that “the international human rights law and mechanisms do not recognise a prenatal right to life”.

The Association of Pre & Perinatal Psychology & Health in the US, the International Society for PreNatal & PeriNatal Psychology & Medicine in Germany and the World Organisation of Prenatal Education Associations in Spain have been promoting womb ecology in world ecology for many years already. In his videos An Introduction to  Pre and Peri-Natal Psychology, Thomas Verny, psychiatrist and family therapist of world fame, expressed his view that if it were for him all pregnant women would wear a T-shirt with the words on it “baby under construction”.

In his capacity as Commissoner for Human Rights, Muižnieks should start talking much less on abortion, anywhere in the world,  and start promoting much more the human rights, the legal and other protection and the wholesome human development of all unborn children all over the world.

Let Muižnieks come to Malta again, after all, not to talk on abortion but to take part in the forthcoming national conference on womb ecology, on the first environment to man, the mother’s womb, which the Malta Unborn Child Movement, with the collaboration of the three international organisations named above, and Verny,  will be organising in the coming months with the Speaker of the Maltese Parliament and the political parties of Malta.

Muižnieks should know also that on February 4 all the political parties in Malta, including the Labour Party in government, together with the Acting President of Malta and Archbishop Emeritus Paul Cremona celebrated the dignity of human life from conception at the manifestation in favour of life organised by MUCM in Valletta.

Tony Mifsud is coordinator of the Malta Unborn Child Movement.

You might excuse me for digressing from my customary focus on environmental issues, but to ignore the current raging debate concerning the introduction or otherwise of abortion merits some consideration.

Without sounding patronising, I wish to contribute my tuppence about the matter, and especially to break the mould once and for all of pro-choice (a misnomer in itself) environmentalists.

As I hope to elucidate through this column, I see no contradiction in being an environmentalist and concurrently a pro-life campaigner. I truly believe that being otherwise would raise the spectre of contradiction, and not the other way round.

I mulled long and hard over whether or not to pen this column, especially since those who fly their kite tend to get burned in this country. This explains why so many valid individuals, especially academics, take a backseat when it comes to contributing to public debate.

The main battering rams deployed by those campaigning for the introduction of abortion on our shores include the fact that, globally, Malta is one of just a few countries which completely denies the ‘right’ to an abortion, as if there is anything shameful in being one of the few countries to safeguard human life, and as if the non-existent ‘right’ to an abortion can ever trump the fundamental right to life.

Similarly, the ‘restricted’ authorisation of abortion, acceded to only in exceptional cases, including life-threatening complications for the mother, rape and in instances of severe foetal physical and mental impairment. My take on the first circumstance is that in cases of a Hobson’s choice during delivery, there is no issue.

On the second, my gender risks giving me a paternalistic tone. I believe that aborting a foetus will only add to the tragedy of rape, adding a further victim to the one we already have, but I don’t expect to be able to fully understand the rape victim’s predicament and neither have I ever met such a victim. I can only make reference to the rape victims who have chosen to bring their pregnancy to a natural completion and whose offspring, whether they were given up for adoption or not, have been given a shot at life.

Concerning the viability of the foetus, this is a slippery slope indeed, bestowing the prerogative over who should live and should die simply on grounds of mental and physical fitness. This surely would be the epitome of discrimination which unravels all ongoing programmes to integrate individuals with different forms of disability and of different races.

Perhaps the most compelling of arguments made by the pro-abortion campaigners is that abortion is already happening on our watch, with a number of Maltese women purchasing online abortive pills and even heading abroad to have their abortion, raising the spectre of a discriminatory access to abortion, with those who can pay being able to circumvent the local ban.

While I still don’t believe that this justifies the fully-fledged introduction of abortion on our shores, the support services provided to expectant mothers who are considering abortion should be thoroughly widened. Although touted by many as a panacea, adoption is not an option for all women considering an abortion, for whom assistance in all its forms cannot wait a further nine months until delivery.

Consistency in views is certainly not our forte as a culture. Take capital punishment. Many are those who are against such a terminal act, normally on the ground that everyone deserves a second chance in life, however heinous his or her crime, and that no one should have the prerogative over another individual’s life. This stance I fully support, but the mind then boggles as to why the same compassion and understanding is not extended to an innocent foetus who certainly does not deserve to pay the ultimate price.

Indeed, the swelling ranks of those who consider the eating of meat as repugnant (a view I respect but don’t share) similarly brand anti-abortionists as hypocritical in view of their support of the culling of farm animals. Respectfully, I fail to see the parallels between the two.

I wish to believe we are living in an age of compassion, especially since we are, and rightly so, granting more civil rights than ever before. We are considering the assisted termination of life (euthanasia), surrogacy and even extended parole rights, just to mention a few examples. We have just granted the right to make medicinal use of cannabis and we even have a Commissioner for Future Generations.

We split hairs, and rightly so, over the lack of open space that future generations will have to contend with, and over the unsavoury climate change scenarios which will await them. We seek the protection of all forms of non-human life, from the most endangered of plant forms to a poorly-known insect, up to the few non-human mammalian species roaming our islands. We regularly support calls to adopt endangered animals in foreign countries.

Hence – and this is where it starts getting murky – why are we not as compassionate when it comes to an unborn, defenceless and unrepresented foetus, who represents the immediate next generation?

Through this, I am not purporting to place humans on a rung above other species, as this view would be construed as being driven by some form of religious creed.

Scare-mongering (such as through the dissemination of butchered foetuses), judgemental hand-wringing (such as the demonisation of those considering an abortion), the drawing of parallels with the divorce issue and the bandying about of religious dogma should definitely not be deployed when countering pro-abortion arguments, since they have been proven to backfire in a spectacular fashion.

Such a debate should neither be reduced to a gender contest and should be decoupled from the priority of addressing current gender inequalities, which should proceed unhindered given its importance. Anti-abortion women, pro-abortion men and anti-abortion atheists are not a figment of our imagination and dispel the stereotypes we would like to attribute to the two sides of the debate.

Despite no political party holding the mandate to initiate the relevant debate, and despite current polls placing the anti-abortion camp well ahead of the pro-abortion one, advocating a referendum on such an issue is simply equivalent to using sheer muscle rather than reason to carry the argument. Persuasion through level-headed and compassionate arguments should be resorted to rather than veiled threats to implement the will of the ‘majority’.

Piero Angela, a mainstay of Italian TV since the early 1980s, was recently interviewed on national Italian TV, with the parting question being about 20th century attributes that he would have gladly brought over to the current century. His glib reply was that in his days, no one spoke of the ‘rights’ they purported to have, but rather spoke of the ‘duties’ they had.

This has completely metamorphosed into the flipside in this day and age, when talk of ‘our body’ is rife (despite overlooking the fact that the same ‘body’ is nurturing another human being, at least for the gestation period).

It is indeed ironic that, while no stone is being left unturned by infertile couples wishing to become parents, with IVF techniques being broadened, some seek to dispose of human life.

I feel a sense of resignation as I write this column, as the introduction of abortion to our shores is increasingly seeming inevitable, especially as the spiel about turning Malta into a ‘modern’ society picks up, as if there is anything progressive about having the unborn pay the ultimate price.

It’s up to those who value human life to prove their case and to convince the uninterested hordes sitting on the fence that it’s an issue worth campaigning for.

alan.deidun@gmail.com

In no uncertain terms, there is nothing Catholic in the US pro-abortion funded lobby group called Catholics for Choice featured by your paper on the March 3.   I do not like bringing in religion into the abortion argument, as I believe that recognising the inherent dignity, equal and inalienable rights of all human beings at whatever stage of life is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace.

However, I cannot accept that this US lobby group created to purposely present religiously warped arguments to confuse Catholics cannot remain unmasked.

Catholics for Choice are no pious organisation, they are a US lobby group created by the strong financial powers supporting abortion in the US and worldwide, and dressed in a Catholic garment, to create confusion among Catholics who oppose abortion because of the love God gave us for humanity, including the child in a mother’s womb.

There are powers from inside and outside of Malta that are intent on creating a debate on abortion, stir doubt and change Maltese public opinion that today is convinced that abortion is a wrong and expects its leaders to stand up in international fora and say so with heads held high.

Richer countries see overpopulation in the poorer countries an economic and security threat to their well-being and pushed the United Nations to promote contraception and abortion as a means of population control.   This is why foundations the like of the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Playboy Foundation, and Soros’s Open Society Foundations to mention a few fund so aggressively pro-abortion lobby groups like the one Amanda Ussak represents, because abortion is not about woman’s rights as the lobby groups they fund try to make us believe, abortion is about bigger economic interests to which they pertain.

Malta, Ireland, other countries, Christians, other religions and pro-life people in countries that have legalised abortion, form part of the world’s conscience that reminds humanity that abortion is a killing of the innocent.  These powers want to shut us up.

Our stand exhumes the guilt that they have buried under the false definitions of “potential life”, “choice”, “cells” as they look the other way of the crushed body of the innocent lifeless child in the bucket in an abortion clinic, whose life has been destroyed for bigger commercial interests.

What motivates Ussak from the US to assist in creating a debate in Malta on otherwise a non-existent issue (as the recent Maltatoday survey has shown), is the agenda set by these powers that finance her lobby group and who want every nation to become pro-abortion suiting their bigger interests.

These interests have nothing to do with women’s rights and even less with the few Maltese mothers that might find themselves in a situation of difficulty and need our tangible support and not selfish impositions.   See the UN’s indifference to the civilian killings and Syrian conflict, and other similar humanitarian tragedies and tell me what “choices” are women in these countries given.

The first principle of being Catholic is to accept the authority of the Catholic Church in one’s life.   Indeed, this is quite the opposite for this lobby group which actually in its website advocates that it “disagrees with the dictates of the Vatican” and “helps people and organisations confidently challenge the power of the Catholic hierarchy”.   If these people are Catholic, then a beef burger is a vegetarian meal.   This group is actually notorious for its failed attempt to downgrade the Catholic Church’s status in the United Nations.  The United States conference of Catholic Bishops has rejected this organisation’s claim to Catholic identity and describes it as “an arm of the abortion lobby”, as has that of Canada and Mexico where the lobby has been active.

For 25 years CFC was led by its founder Frances Kissling quoted as saying: “I spent 20 years looking for a government that I could overthrow without being thrown in jail. I finally found one in the Catholic Church.”  Great Catholic credentials.

Interesting while CFC claims to represent a majority of Catholics, this lobby group is actually not open to membership and meaning Catholics have no say.  Catholics are not allowed to join as members and participate in the group’s positions with the board appointed by the financial interests that support it.    How they claim to represent a majority baffles me.

Where is this majority of Catholics for abortion, I fail to find?  Not in Malta and not even in the US where this lobby group is founded, and where Catholics are notoriously known to be pro-life (for clarity’s sake, against abortion).

This lobby group relies on paid employees to promote abortion in a Catholic-looking wrapper.  In the US the strongest opponents to abortion are Christians especially Catholics and Evangelicals.  This organisation was purposely created by the pro-abortion foundations to create inroads with Catholics, which seems to become less and less successful.  It is interesting to note that it is the younger generation in the US that is becoming more pro-life.

Her arguments are even less Catholic.  When Catholics talk of conscience, we talk of a formed conscience that includes the knowledge and understanding of what the Church teaches on the matter and not its outright denial or resistance.

She claims to advocate abortion to enable women to live to their full potential.   Whose potential, definitely not of the child but also not of a pregnant woman who if supported would opt to retain the child that is within her.  With her argument the State should legalise all killings when the person killed is limiting someone else’s potential. A thinking derived from the law of the jungle and not civilisation.

The most appalling reason that Ussak put in favour of abortion is to claim that the unborn child “does not have a developed conscience or an understanding of Church and societal teachings to enable it to make decisions”, and therefore that life can be terminated.

Seriously? So according to Ussak, if you have an undeveloped conscience you can be killed?  Or whoever does not understand the Church and societal teachings has no right to life?  Since when one’s ability to make decisions is the criterion if one has a right to live or die?  Since when anyone has the right to decide who lives or who dies?  Surely not Catholics.  What Ussak is advocating is not Catholicism but Nazism.

With an annual budget of $3 million and financially backed by notoriously pro-abortion foundations such as the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and notoriously the Playboy Foundation, no wonder Ussak if finding the time to try and confuse the minds of Catholics in Ireland and Malta, promoting an agenda of death.   Truly the case of a wolves wearing sheep clothing.

Tonio Fenech is a former Nationalist Party minister.

Ref: https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20180316/opinion/Those-Catholics-for-Choice-Tonio-Fenech.673495

 

It is amply clear that the campaign for the eventual legalisation of abortion is gearing up and using all available means to keep the issue on the front burner.

This in spite of the repeated assurances from the Prime Minister himself, if I read what he says correctly, that there is no chance of abortion being legalised, under his watch.

This concerted campaign also flies in the face of the unequivocal, clear and impressive message, sent by respondents to a survey conducted recently (February 4) by another section of the press, which showed in loud and clear terms that the overwhelming majority (over 95 per cent) of the Maltese population, across the whole age spectrum, are against abortion, with figures dropping slightly when emotional and highly debated ethico-moral situations, such as ‘mother’s life put in danger’, ‘severe disability of the unborn child’, ‘rape’, ‘pregnancy in under-16s’ are factored into the equation.

The message is there for everyone to see.

This is why I was once again appalled at the patriarchal and didactic attitude assumed by the outgoing Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, in his contribution to this paper (February 26).

Following his first pronouncements on the subject last November when he visited Malta, instead of answering to the challenging questions addressed to him concerning as to where he gets the mandate to recommend the killing of new life in the womb (abortion) as a human right, and to quote chapter and verse which Council of Europe convention backed by the unanimous vote of Member States declares abortion as a human right, he finds the audacity to come back lecturing us on the ‘need’ to reform abortion law.

I am sure the commissioner can employ his remaining weeks in office, more profitably campaigning for more human rights for people in war-stricken areas such as Syria, on human trafficking, and the rights of suppressed, downtrodden and exploited minorities.

The commissioner made the daring declaration that “the right to life does not apply prior to birth and that international human rights law and mechanisms do not recognise a prenatal right to life”.

He recommends “abortion care” should be available on a “woman’s request” in early pregnancy and throughout pregnancy, “to protect women’s health and life and ensure freedom from ill treatment”.

The commissioner astounds me when he speaks of avoiding what he calls “ill treatment” of the mother in the same breath that he recommends the killing of the foetus/baby (throughout pregnancy).

This extreme barbarous treatment of the baby in the commissioner’s dictionary goes by the euphemism of “abortion”. There cannot be more extreme ill treatment than outright killing.

The only positive recommendation the commissioner made, and with which we all agree, was when he appealed for full access to comprehensive sexual education and modern contraception, so as to help prevent unwanted pregnancies and reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies.

Let me point out that whereas the commissioner states that international human rights law and mechanisms do not recognise a prenatal right to life, the Declaration of the Rights of the Child adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations (a global not simply European organisation) in November 1959, and recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, declares in no ambiguous terms that “the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth”.

Killing the foetus/baby during abortion surely does not qualify as “special safeguard and care”.

In this frenzied push to justify putting abortion on the political agenda we have also been told that we should put away all moral, ethical, and legal consideration and abide by what our conscience dictates, making conscience the final arbiter. (‘Conscience should be the final arbiter on abortion’, March 3.)

It has to be said that the issue of abortion is not one tied to any particular religious denomination. It is against the unnatural act of killing one’s offspring. It is one of civilised man’s basic ethics and instincts: thou shalt not kill. One is against it not because of Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or any other faith’s morals. It is because it is intrinsically wrong and against nature.

If, to follow the line of thinking of this so-called Catholics for Choice, we acknowledge conscience as the final arbiter, we can do away with prosecution of all types of wrongdoers and crime, because everyone would defend himself by claiming he was following the dictates of his conscience, ‘the final arbiter’.

Speaking on the rights of the unborn, I strongly appeal that in the coming debate on the amendments to the Domestic Violence Bill, presently before Parliament, the definition of “family or domestic unit” (Part 1, Art.2) includes “the child conceived but yet unborn of any of the persons mentioned as forming the family” as is presently in the Domestic Violence Act of 2006, Chapter 481 of the Laws of Malta. The term “an ascendant or descendant”, Part 1, Art 2 (d) as proposed in the Bill before Parliament, is too vague.

In any legal interpretation by our courts of law in the future, any respectable judge would invoke the maxim ubi voluit dixit, meaning that had the legislator wanted to include (the unborn child in this case), he would have made specific mention of it in the legislation.

Not including the unborn child in the definition of “family” conveys the wrong message, and will not be consonant with the Prime Minister’s repeated declarations of his opposition to abortion.

George Vella is a retired specialist in family medicine and  former minister for foreign affairs.