“Can you be an athlete? You, pregnant? You, a mother? That depends.”

“Can you be an athlete? You, pregnant? You, a mother? That depends.”

The message behind Nike’s advert mirrors the ultimate prolife slogan.

Nike released a new video advert to promote their maternity range. The message behind the advert is clear: pregnancy and motherhood do not prevent a woman from being an athlete—or, in actual fact, from following any other activity that she loves.

The message behind Nike’s advert mirrors the ultimate prolife slogan. Prolife organisations worldwide are constantly encouraging women in crisis pregnancies by stating that being a mother should not necessarily stand in the way of them achieving their dreams, whether it is to become an athlete, graduate from school, or have a career. Nike’s endorsement of this message is testament to the fact that the prolife culture in the United States seems to be gaining ground. This could indeed be life-changing for the prolife movement worldwide.

The empowering video, featuring pregnant women and mothers, opens with the questions: “Can you be an athlete? You, pregnant? You, a mother? That depends.”

It continues by defining what an athlete is: “Someone who moves; someone who gets it done, no matter what; someone who listens to her body; someone who defies gravity; someone who deals with the pain, hits her limit and pushes past it; pushing, pushing, pushing; someone who earns every single win.” Each defining phrase is backed by a resounding “You”, emphasising the fact that mothers are strong and that pregnancy is not a reason for them to quit the things they love doing. The video ends by reaffirming this sentiment:

“So, can you be an athlete? If you aren’t, no one is.”

 

Nike’s powerful advert portrays various well-established athletes—among them tennis, soccer, and track professionals—in different stages of pregnancy and motherhood. These transformative experiences and life changes may feel overwhelming to a woman, especially when she is new to them. Pregnancy can indeed be the utmost test of stamina and endurance for a woman. But, as the advert ascertains, mothers are actually much tougher than they are given credit for.

It is truly empowering to acknowledge that women can be mothers and accomplish their life goals. If they cannot, no one can!

Kont f’paniku w onestament ħsibt fl-abort

“Kont f’paniku w onestament il-ħsieb ta’ l-abort għadda min moħħi. Nixtieq ngħid grazzi lil Life Line Malta għax bis-saħħa tagħhom it-tarbija tagħna ġiet salvata!”

Din hija l-istorja vera ta’ mara li esperjenzat tqala mhux pjanata u li ġiet megħjuna minn Life Line Malta.

Nisa li jinsabu fi krizi ta’ tqala, dijanosi negattiva waqt it-tqala jew akkompanjament lin-nies li għaddejin mit-trauma tal-abort, ċemplu lill Life Line Malta fuq 20330023.

Life Line is the support and care arm of Life Network Foundation  

Bdejt naħseb fl-abort għaliex diġà kelli t-tfal

“Bdejt naħseb fl-abort għaliex diġà kelli t-tfal u peress li kelli problema tad-droga, ma stajtx inkun l-omm li xtaqt li kont.”

Din hija l-istorja vera ta’ mara li esperjenzat tqala mhux pjanata u li ġiet megħjuna minn Life Line Malta.

Nisa li jinsabu fi krizi ta’ tqala, dijanosi negattiva waqt it-tqala jew akkompanjament lin-nies li ghaddejin mit-trauma tal-abort, ċemplu lill Life Line Malta fuq 20330023.

Life Line is the support and care arm of Life Network Foundation

Life Line Malta gave me light in time of darkness

“Accidentally I got pregnant for the second time and I wanted to end my pregnancy. Life Line Malta gave me light in time of darkness.”

This is the real story of a young woman who was in a crisis pregnancy situation. She received all the help needed from Life Line Malta. Listen to her touching story!

For women in crisis pregnancy, negative pre-natal diagnoses & post-abortion healing please call Life Line Malta on 2033 0023

Life Line Malta is the support & care arm of Life Network Foundation

Bħala familja lesta biex tgħin lin-nisa li għaddejjin min kriżi ta’ tqala

“Life Network hija bħala familja lesta biex tgħin lin-nisa li għaddejjin min kriżi ta’ tqala.”

Din hija l-istorja ta’ mara li esperjenzat tqala mhux pjanata u li llum il-ġurnata tghin  nisa ohra li għaddejjin mill-listess sitwazzjoni simili taghha.

Nisa li jinsabu fi krizi ta’ tqala, dijanosi negattiva waqt it-tqala jew akkompanjament lin-nies li ghaddejin mit-trauma tal-abort, ċemplu lill Life Line Malta fuq 20330023.

Life Line Malta is the support and care arm of Life Network Foundation

Argentineans Fall Victim to Legalized Abortion

Argentineans Fall Victim to Legalized Abortion

In the chaos that characterized the end of 2020, many people missed one of the most important – and discouraging – stories of the year. In the waning hours of 2020, the Argentinean Senate voted 38-29 to legalize abortion-on-demand up to the 14th week of pregnancy. The Chamber of Deputies had passed the bill a few weeks earlier.

And so, one more nation falls to the culture of death.

The scenes from Argentina in the moments after the Senate vote was announced were reminiscent of the scenes from Ireland in 2018, after the vote to repeal the 8th Amendment, which had banned abortion in the Catholic country. As in Ireland, the pro-abortion crowds gathered in the streets of Argentina screamed and shouted and wept, hugging one another in raptures of joy.

As someone who knows that the unborn child is a living human being, as deserving of the right to life as you or I, it is difficult to reconcile these scenes of happiness with the reality of what had just occurred. People were openly celebrating the “right” to kill other human beings. They were shedding tears of joy over this “progress.”

If only those pro-abortion activists knew what they had just unleashed on their country! In one fell swoop they had just undermined the entire foundation of the edifice of human rights, and potentially paved the way for the further advancement of the culture of death in the region.

As Pope St. John Paul II wrote in Christifideles Laici,

The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights – for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture – is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination. (no. 38)

International Pressure

The pro-life organization C-Fam reports that the abortion law passed in Argentina is especially sinister in a number of ways.

“Argentina’s new law doesn’t just decriminalize abortion,” writes Stefano Gennarini. “It declares abortion-on-demand in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy an international human right. It refers to ‘gestating persons’ instead of pregnant women. Girls as young as 13 will be able to get an abortion without parental consent under the new law.”

In addition, the law erodes conscience rights, making it illegal for nurses or doctors to try to convince a woman not to get an abortion.

Argentina only legalized abortion after an intense pressure campaign from wealthy and powerful developed nations. As Gennarini reports, “Argentina was urged to legalize abortion by Germany, France, and Norway, and another half-dozen countries in the Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2017, when it last reported on its human rights record.”

In addition, according t0 Gennarini, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) “had made legalizing abortion a condition of repackaging Argentina’s out of control national debt.” In other words, powerful international forces had blackmailed Argentina into sacrificing its unborn children, in exchange for financial benefits.

In general, Latin America remains strongly pro-life. Only a few nations allow abortion, and even then, abortion is typically only legal in a certain number of cases. However, international pro-abortion forces believe that once they can get a foothold on the region, then perhaps they might see a domino effect, with other nations soon following suit.

Pro-Lifers Prepare to Fight

HLI has been for nearly three decades an active participant in the pro-life movement in Argentina. I personally have been on missions in this country, working closely with our affiliates and international team in Latin America. Through these affiliate relationships and in collaboration with Church and civil leaders, as well as with other pro-life activists, we have worked tirelessly on the cultural battlefield in Argentina to protect human life from the culture of death, educating the public on the intrinsic evil of abortion and the dire consequences if accepted and legalized. Pro-life advocates in Argentina fought vigorously to protect their nation and people from the ensuing violence and they are to be commended for their heroic efforts.

The legalization vote came after a multi-year fight, in which pro-life activists in the country ran one of the most sophisticated, jubilant, and massive pro-life campaigns in history.

Each side in the debate was represented by a certain color – the pro-life side by blue, and the pro-abortion side by green. Over the past two years, the pro-life side has organized some of the largest pro-life marches in history, with an estimated attendance of multiple millions of participants across the country.

The imagery from these marches is astonishing and inspiring. Massive crowds of young families danced and sang through the streets, many of them dressed in blue or carrying blue banners. Vast seas of pro-life Argentineans hit the streets to tell legislators that they stand with the vulnerable.

The loss with this legalization is crushing for the country’s pro-life activists. But with an indefatigable spirit, they are vowing to continue fighting. And they have a plan.

“First, we’re trying to brake this in court,” pro-life leader Camila Duro told LifeSiteNews in a recent interview. “After that,” she said, “the cultural battle is the priority. We’ll work to make abortion unthinkable. We’ll fight. Our doctors and the people are mostly against abortion. This is just a new start.” (emphasis added)

Life: The First and Foundational Human Right

All human rights originate in the immutable and innate dignity of the human person. In our times, evil forces are working tirelessly to degrade the fundamental uniqueness and inviolable dignity of every human person, most especially the child in the womb.

Is killing a human right? If killing an innocent child in the womb is a “human right,” then the same right gives me the permission, the right, to arbitrarily kill someone outside the womb. There is no distinction. Mother Teresa spoke of this issue: “If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell people not to kill one another?”

In a powerful statement on abortion, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith noted:

“The first right of the human person is his life. He has other goods and some are more precious, but this one is fundamental – the condition of all the others. Hence it must be protected above all others. It does not belong to society, nor does it belong to public authority in any form to recognize this right for some and not for others.” (Declaration on Procured Abortion, no. 11)

 

A child in the womb is an independent life, separate from the life of the mother – just like a person walking alongside me on the street. By denying the right to life to an entire class of its most vulnerable citizens, Argentina has opened the door to all manner of human rights abuses, and to societal and family breakdown.

However, the Argentinean pro-life movement is prepared for the fight, for as long as it might last.

“It was painful. Very painful,” Camila Duro said of the vote to legalize abortion. “I think the best we can do is to fight this battle till the end. The worst thing is to consider how many years this new battle is going to take, and how many babies are going to die because of this law, and how many women are going to be broken because of abortion.”

Pro-life activists, like those in Argentina, are the true civil rights heroes of our time. Despite facing powerful and well-funded international pro-abortion forces, they retain a spirit of hope and determination. The same is true here in the United States, and in so many nations around the world.

Though the culture of death is dominant in so much of the world, we know that death will not have the final word. “O grave, where is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” wrote St. Paul to the Corinthians. The culture of death has claimed, and will claim, many lives. But it is not the final word. For, continues St. Paul, “thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

 

This is www.hli.org opinion piece

Ref: https://www.hli.org/2021/01/argentineans-fall-victim-to-legalized-abortion/?vcrmeid=BdotVti4kGMR7m2OWnSuw&vcrmiid=4Bgye-70G0mwUcPF91joPA

  

Mother who adopted baby with Down’s syndrome shares her inspiring story

Mother who adopted baby with Down’s syndrome shares her inspiring story

A mother who adopted a child with Down’s syndrome has shared her inspiring story.

The anonymous mother, who adopted Harry, shared her adoption story with the Metro, as part of their ‘Adoption Month’ news coverage. 

After struggles with infertility and a miscarriage, the mum decided she wanted to adopt, and was approved to adopt a child aged three or older. 

After several months in the process, she was given Harry’s profile.

“I asked specifically for a child with Down’s syndrome and the very next day, I received Harry’s details.”

Harry was a dream from day one

When the mother received Harry’s details, he was just four months old. 

Despite being only approved to adopt a child aged three or over, her unique experience meant that the adoption agency made an exception and allowed her to adopt Harry.

The mum had grown up in a family where disability was not uncommon. 

“To me, disability isn’t something unusual – it’s just a part of life. My little sister has Down’s syndrome and is just a few years younger than me, and I also have other disabled family members.”

In July 2016, after six months of paperwork, she finally got to take him home. “Harry was a dream from day one,” she said.

“My family were overjoyed when I adopted Harry.”

There were challenges of course: “When he was young, he used to often be sick at night, all over the bed, due to reflux issues. Cleaning up the vomit for the millionth time is the only time I thought to myself ‘I can’t do this’ – but you just have to grin and bear it.

“That’s what being a parent is at times!

“He is so bright and super sociable. We both love being outdoors and often walk around the lake near our house or visit animals at the nearby farm.

“To me, Harry is just a boy. Some days, I completely forget that he has Down’s syndrome.”

I’m now looking at adopting a second child

Children born with Down’s syndrome are often hard to place. “There are so many kids out there who need a home. I would absolutely encourage people to adopt a disabled child, as they can be the hardest to place but have so much love to give.”

“I’m now looking at adopting a second child, perhaps one with Down’s syndrome – but I am keeping an open mind. Fingers crossed, Harry will have another sibling next year.”

Scale of Down’s syndrome abortions

Sadly, this inspiring story takes place against the backdrop of 3,183 disability selective abortions across England & Wales in just 2019, with 656 of those occurring following a prenatal diagnosis of Down’s syndrome.

At the same time, a recent report revealed that pregnant mothers who refuse to abort their children with Down’s syndrome are being pressured by some medical professionals to change their decision.

One mother, whose child is now four-years-old, said medical professionals told her they could leave her baby with Down’s syndrome to die if it was struggling after birth.

Another mum recounted that even at 38 weeks pregnant she was being offered an abortion.

Right to Life UK spokesperson Catherine Robinson said, “Unfortunately there is so much stigma surrounding Down’s syndrome and more inspiring stories like this one need to be heard. But there is hope. The High Court in London will soon hear a landmark case against the UK Government over the country’s discriminatory abortion legislation, which singles out babies with disabilities by allowing terminations right through to birth for conditions including Down’s syndrome, cleft lip and club foot.”

“This young mum’s story is just one example of the positive impact that the Down’s syndrome and disability communities have across the United Kingdom. In 2019, 656 babies were aborted due to a prenatal diagnosis of Down’s syndrome. Every one of those lives lost represents a failure of our society to embrace those with disabilities inside and outside the womb.”

 

This is www.righttolife.org.uk opinion piece

Ref: https://righttolife.org.uk/news/mother-who-adopted-baby-with-downs-syndrome-shares-her-inspiring-story/ 

  

Abortion, Not COVID-19, Named Leading Cause of Death in 2020 With Nearly 43 Million Killed Worldwide

Abortion, Not COVID-19, Named Leading Cause of Death in 2020 With Nearly 43 Million Killed Worldwide

More people died in 2020 from abortions than any other cause of death worldwide.

That’s right. Despite the overwhelming number of deaths that 2020 brought us through the coronavirus pandemic, abortion was once again named the leading cause of death last year, killing nearly 24 times more people than the coronavirus.

Data compiled by Worldometers — a highly accredited site that collects official data from governments, scientific journals, and other reputable groups like the World Health Organization — revealed that as of December 31, 2020, an estimated 42.7 MILLION abortions had been performed over the course of the year.

Those staggering statistics, when compared to the number of babies born in 2020, would suggest that nearly a quarter of all pregnancies worldwide (23 percent) ended in abortion. For every 33 live births last year, 10 babies were aborted.

In the U.S. alone, where nearly half of all pregnancies are unplanned and 4 in 10 of these are terminated by abortion, there are over 3,000 abortions per day.

Abortion and The Global Death Toll

According to Johns Hopkins University, worldwide deaths from the coronavirus in 2020 totaled 1.8 million.

By comparison, Worldometers revealed that 8.2 million people died from cancer, 5 million from smoking, and 1.7 million of HIV/AIDS.

With deaths from abortion exceeding those from cancer, HIV/Aids, suicide, malaria, and car accidents combined, several pro-life activist groups are calling abortion “the social justice cause of our time.”

In a year when our eyes were opened even more to the racial injustices our country and world faces, we can’t ignore the facts that our unborn black brothers and sisters are at an even higher risk of abortion.

 

Abortion and The Black Community

According to data published in the Journal of Primary Care and Community Health, black women have been experiencing induced abortions at a rate nearly 4 times that of White women for at least 3 decades, and likely much longer.

“The science community has refused to engage on the subject and the popular media has essentially ignored it,” the authors write. “In the current unfolding environment, there may be no better metric for the value of Black lives.”

In a podcast with Nick Cannon earlier this year, Kanye West called abortion “black genocide.”

“Planned Parenthood was set up and placed in minority communities to kill black people,” West said, noting that “over 1,000 black babies are aborted every day.”

Cannon, who is also a vocal pro-life advocate, pointed to the racist beliefs of Margaret Sanger—the founder of Planned Parenthood, and listened intently as West read an excerpt about her from his phone.

“Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was an avowed racist whose goal was to reduce the black population in America and she succeeded,” West read from his phone. “Eighty percent of abortion clinics in America are in minority neighborhoods.

The organization recently disavowed Sanger over her “harmful connections” to racist movements, like eugenics.

“We are inside genocide as we speak,” West says.

When we count each and every one of these babies — the same way God sees and knows and loves every single one of them — as humans who died, the actual number of deaths worldwide in 2020 was approximately 101 million.

Pro-Life Advocacy

Although pro-life advocates are working tirelessly to put an end to abortion, their efforts continue to be met with social and political reform. And with complications posed by the coronavirus pandemic, it remains an uphill battle.

Although abortion rates in the U.S. are reportedly on the decline, it is still one of the leading causes of death, robbing the lives of an estimated 1 million U.S, babies annually. And a report from the UK Department of Health earlier this year revealed that in 2019 — the most recent year on record for which the Department has revised abortion statistics — the number of abortions in the UK hit an all-time high. Official figures show it was the highest number of abortions in a year since the historic vote in 1967 to legalize abortion in Britain through the Abortion Act.

Later this month, thousands will gather in Washington D.C. for the 48th annual March for Life rally on January 29th. This year’s theme is “Together Strong: Life Unites.”

The annual march commemorates the January 22, 1973 Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade, which invalidated 50 state laws and made abortion legal and available on demand throughout the United States.

This is a www.ForEveryMom.com opinion piece

Ref: https://foreverymom.com/society/abortion-not-covid-19-named-leading-cause-death-2020/

It is a myth that teenagers and young adults support abortion

It is a myth that teenagers and young adults support abortion

In a survey that took place a few months ago, it was stated that the generation which is most predisposed to support abortion is the younger generation, specifically composed of millennials (loosely defined as those born between 1980 and 2000) and Generation Z (those born after 2000).

As people from both these generations, we write in unwavering support of a consistent pro-life ethic. We aim to challenge the myth that it is somehow obvious or unsurprising that teenagers and young adults support the pro-abortion position. Motivated by compassion, our position on this matter is that a society is only as humane and liberal as the extent to which it values all human life, whatever its stage, state or condition.

We sincerely believe that life is a gift to be lived, treasured and enjoyed. This being stated, the enjoyment of our own lives does not absolve us from accompanying and helping those who are burdened with hardship. On the contrary, it is in communion with those who suffer that true joy begins. To paraphrase the poetess Emily Dickinson, if we can ease one life the aching, we shall not live in vain.

However severe, hardship does not diminish the value of human life. Rather, it offers opportunities for a person to mature and become more sensitive to suffering humanity.

Building on this, we hold that the first and greatest fundamental right is the right to life. One need not be some eminent jurist to understand that unless one’s right to life is respected all other rights are meaningless. There must be equality in the enjoyment of the right to life. The taking of human life prior to birth, for whatever reason, is an egregious example of inequality and injustice. It unjustly discriminates against those of us still to be born.

We hold dear all expectant mothers in difficult situations and address them directly: your silent cries for help are heard

Human beings are naturally averse to the taking of life. However, in such situations, some frequently reason that abortion may be a necessary evil. We propose a bolder stand.

To choose to kill a child, born or yet to be born, is never an option. Statistics demonstrate that most of those who seek abortion do so because they are bereft of support and friendship. It is this lack of support that may lead a person to conclude that abortion is the only solution to an unplanned pregnancy.

We are the builders of the new, compassionate society. We hold that life itself has intrinsic and inestimable value. It is this core belief that motivates each of us to offer moral and material support to anyone who may be going through a tough time, be it due to unplanned pregnancy or some other situation.

As young professionals in various sectors and as students aspiring to contribute to society, we are committed to being points of light and beacons of hope. We reject the throwaway culture that mars our world as short-sighted and irresponsible. Most of us have direct, personal experience of caring for and accompanying people in need. We believe that children, whether born or yet to be born, deserve equal loving care.

This firm belief leads us to use our personal, professional and academic lives not just for our own advancement but for the betterment of others, particularly the most vulnerable. This is the only way of life that can defeat the throwaway culture of which abortion forms part.

Abortion is not defeated through legislation or debate. It is defeated through love. Specifically, it is defeated through love, concretely expressed. We do not accept that an expectant mother in the most desperate of situations can and should be told that if she aborts her pregnancy all will be well. All will most decidedly not be well.

Those peddling abortion in our country would have us believe that if a desperate mother is sent on an expenses-paid trip to a foreign abortion facility all will be well. This is a falsehood.

We hold dear all expectant mothers in difficult situations and address them directly: your silent cries for help are heard.

Reach out. Do not let anyone tell you that death solves your problems. It does not. We stand ready to help. You and your child are loved, valuable and necessary. Your child is not a problem but a source of hope and joy.

Pro-life Millennials and Generation Z – Michaela Agius, Michelle Attard, Phyllisienne Bugeja, Ryan Paul Camilleri, Maria Formosa, Edward Grech, Javan Grech, Sara Portelli, Bradley Sammut, Nicole Marie Sladden, Rebecca Spiteri and Edelgail Zammit

 This is www.timesofmalta.com opinion piece

Ref: https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/inestimable-and-intrinsic-worth-group-of-young-professionals-and.842637

Abortion – Womb or Tomb? – Giovanni Bonello

Abortion – womb or tomb? – Giovanni Bonello

The University Għaqda Studenti tal-Liġi has come out strongly in favour of decriminalisation of abortion in Malta. No one disputes their fundamental right to hold and spread opinions, all the more so when the opinions are necessarily subjective and often more emotionally than rationally based. Perhaps they could have been more cautious where angels fear to tread.

I propose to deal briefly with some current legal misconceptions, avoiding as much as possible the equally relevant minefields of science, ethics, cultural traditions and religious belief.

So, exclusively law, and starting with fundamental law. It is often repeated that a woman’s right to abortion is her fundamental human right. Is it? Who says so?

In Europe there is an empirical but universally accepted standard as to what is a fundamental human right and what is not. In brief, fundamental human rights are only those which the European Court of Human Rights says are fundamental human rights (though domestic law is entitled to add to the list).

Now, in its 61 years existence and its tens of thousands of judgments, a number of which dealt specifically with abortion-related issues, not once, repeat, not once has the supreme court of Europe qualified abortion as a human right.

The closest it came was to rule that, if domestic legislation allowed abortion, then it would be a violation of a women’s rights to deny her, directly or indirectly, that option. Never has the supreme court of Europe ruled that a state must legalise abortion. Every sovereign state remains free to legalise abortion, to decriminalise it in given circumstances or to criminalise it.

A second legal misconception: rights only begin at birth. Not quite so. Our law deems a woman, whether one week or nine months pregnant, as a “woman with child”.

A look at current Maltese law dismisses the fable that a foetus is merely “a clump of cells”, the same way a beauty-spot, a bunion or a blister is. Not at all. The very words of the Criminal Code negate this.

Abortion, according to the code (Article 241), occurs when anyone causes the miscarriage of “a woman with child”. Not the miscarriage of “a woman with a clump of cells”. A foetus, however early, is by Maltese law considered to be a child, with some of the rights and the expectations of a child – among them, the right not to be quashed before birth.

This the Criminal Code repeats in the notion of grievous bodily harm. The law qualifies a harm as grievous when, if “committed on a woman with child, it causes miscarriage” (Article 218). A harm is not grievous if committed on a woman with “a clump of cells”. It escalates in gravity when a woman is “with child”.

Maltese law dismisses the fable that a foetus is merely “a clump of cells”. Above is an illustration of an early-stage embryo. Photo: Sciepro/Shutterstock.comWhen protecting the right to life, for the purposes of establishing criminal guilt, Maltese law does not differentiate between a foetus and a born child. It safeguards them equally, however early the pregnancy. There is only a difference in the punishment, not in the criminal guilt.

Though not specified in the written law of procedure, in practice our traditional system of protection under the law has adopted the institute of ‘curator of the womb’ known by its old-style name of curatore al ventre. When a pregnant married woman is widowed, the court may, at the request of any interested person, appoint a curator to safeguard the interests of the unborn child.

The court does not appoint a curator to defend the expectations of a clump of cells but to protect an unborn being deemed to be holder of potential or actual rights.

And, before capital punishment was abolished in Malta in 2000, it was official government policy to commute the death penalty of any woman who was pregnant at the time of sentencing or of execution. Did the state care about not sending to death a woman with a clump of cells, or was it concerned with not terminating the autonomous life of a separate being who had not been convicted of any crime?

On the horns of a dilemma, the state preferred that a guilty pregnant woman should escape just retribution, rather than that an innocent foetus should have his or her life terminated. I am now being told that the state was not choosing between justice, on one hand, and an unborn child on the other. Oh no, the state was officially opting for injustice to society in order to save… a clump of cells.

In prohibiting the execution of pregnant women, Malta was following the principle now enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: “Sentence of death shall not be carried out on pregnant women” (Article 6). The life of a criminal mother is spared, obviously not to upset a clump of cells.

I understand that a purely ‘legal’ configuration of the abortion narrative informs only a part of the debate and that powerful arguments militate on either side of the fence. But it is simplistic to reduce complex and contentious issues to black or white.

There is excellent material in this Position Paper, though it is massively one-sided in problems so seeped in controversy. I wished the Għaqda Studenti tal-Liġi, whose function it is to promote the study of law, had been more balanced and nuanced.

Giovanni Bonello, ex-judge at the European Court of Human Rights

 

This is www.timesofmalta.com opinion piece

Ref: https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/abortion-womb-or-tomb-giovanni-bonello.841637