Mum Dad & Kids – Sign the Initiative!
The organisers of the Mum, Dad & Kids European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) are happy to announce that it is now possible to sign in favour of marriage and family online and support this ECI!
Please take a few minutes to visit our website and sign.
Click here to access Mum, Dad & Kids European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) website
The best interests of the child
A quarter of a century ago, Malta ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In view of this fact, it is worth reflecting on some of the stipulations of this Convention, especially given that certain quarters are calling for the elimination of the legal protection which Maltese law affords the human person before birth. The rights set forth in the Convention aim to serve the inherent dignity of the human being. It is precisely the respect for this dignity which inspires the Convention to clearly state in its Preamble that the child needs appropriate legal protection before, as well as after birth.
To date, Maltese law performs admirably in this regard. Amongst other things, the Embryo Protection Act prohibits the freezing of embryos, experimentation with embryos, surrogacy, cloning, as well as the creation of a human embryo for any purpose other than that of implanting it in a prospective mother. It is also worth noting that harsh penalties are in place for anyone who violates these provisions. Therefore, anyone who knows that the embryonic stage is one of the early stages of the formation of the baby inside the mother’s womb, would also know that the Embryo Protection Act goes a long way towards fulfilling the principal aim of the Convention, which is that of protecting human dignity in the weakest of its possessors.
The Embryo Protection Act and the Convention go hand in hand in many other respects. In another part of its Preamble, the Convention states that the child is best brought up in a family environment. Article 7 of the Convention buttresses this with its obligation on states to ensure that the child has a right to know his parents and be cared for by them. The Embryo Protection Act affirms this in its definition of a prospective parent under Article 2 as “either of two persons of the opposite sex who are united in marriage, or who have attained the age of majority and are in a stable relationship with each other.”
In all legislation affecting children, it has always been held that the guiding principle should always be that of the best interests of the child. This principle ensures that children are always at the centre of any decision that may affect them. Therefore, one is compelled to ask whether the calls coming from some quarters also aim to safeguard the best interests of the child. To answer this, one must take stock of the immense pain which a couple suffer when they discover that one or both of them are infertile.
There is no question of balance between circumventing infertility and safeguarding the rights of the child. Although the wish to conceive and bring up children in a family environment is an extraordinarily noble wish, one must always be aware that it is the child who has the right to be cared for by parents, and not the prospective parents who have the right to a child.
Limiting the definition of prospective parents to one male and one female united in marriage or in a stable relationship is an act of respect for the dignity and well-being of the human person, since it is widely affirmed by experts and legislation alike that the family environment is the best environment for raising children. To alter the definition of prospective parents to allow same-sex couples would open the door to anonymous gamete donation and surrogacy.
The donation by women of eggs and by men of sperm would have a twofold effect. First of all, it reduces men and women to mere producers, akin to cows producing milk. Secondly, it would render the child, once born, unable to know the identity of one of his or her biological parents. This would have grave consequences for the child, who would essentially be deprived of a considerable part of his or her identity.
Surrogacy is the act of placing the fertilised egg, against payment, into another woman who would eventually give birth to the child and then hand it over to the so-called parents. This objectifies women and strips them of their dignity, as evidenced by many feminists who firmly oppose this practice. Surrogacy turns women into mere carriers and children into orphans.
It is precisely all of this which should be more than persuasive enough to dissuade our legislators from changing any part of the Embryo Protection Act. This law is a guarantor of human dignity and as such, should be left to carry out its task of safeguarding the dignity of the human embryo from conception.
Ramon Bonett Sladden
Stop the forced imposition of gender ideology in EU schools
Join this petition! Presidency of the European Parliament and European Commission: Stop the forced imposition of gender ideology in EU schools : http://citizengo.org/en/26581-refus-lideologie-du-genre-dans-les-ecoles-lue?tc=gm&tcid=15462350
Il-Konfuzjoni ta’ l-Identita tal-Generu fit-tlett minuti
Perils of early sexualisation
It has been reported that “the chairman of a parliamentary committee is to suggest the decriminalisation of sexual activity between minors aged 13 to 15. Labour MP Etienne Grech, who chairs Parliament’s Standing Committee on Health, said he would raise the possibility during the next meeting of MPs…” (timesof malta.com, June 8).
We are discussing children between the ages of 13 and 15. Early sexualisation of children will have long-term consequences health-wise for the children involved, but it will also affect the outcome of their life choices. These same children will face a trail of abuse from sexual predators without protection and from an earlier age .
Consider the following extracts from Psychology Today. It is a well-known fact that access to sexually explicit material on the internet at an early age can contribute to early sexualisation of children. A 2012 study published in Psychological Science found that the more teens were exposed to sexual content in films, the earlier they started having sex and the likelier they were to have casual, unprotected sex.
The earlier a child is exposed to sexual content and begins having sex, the likelier he or she is to engage in high-risk sex. Research shows that children who have sex by age 13 are more likely to have multiple sexual partners, engage in frequent intercourse and have unprotected sex and use drugs or alcohol before sex.
In a study by researcher Jennings Bryant, more than 66 per cent of boys and 40 per cent of girls reported wanting to try some of the sexual behaviour they saw in the media, which increases the risk of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies.
It seems that the media projection of sex as some sort of a ‘cool’ thing to be doing is reaping its fruits. In this golden age of internet access, children have direct access to pornography in our homes.
They have internet on their phones as well as cameras for selfies and sexting. All this from a very young age.
Who is to blame if they get lost navigating through this vast plain of progressive media? Are they being instructed on how to be media wise and safe when surfing the internet?
Are they being warned of predators that are on the lookout for innocent children? Will they be able to make a distinction between virtual relationships and real relationships?
Some children are spending more time on virtual relationships than on real ones, including relationships with their very own families.
Online long-term friendships and romance tend to fizzle out unless accompanied by physical meetings and face-to-face encounters. In the tender adolescent phase, there is a lack of emotional maturity and impulse control, coupled with poor judgment, especially if youths are unaware of the turbulent effects of their own hormones. The last thing they need is someone encouraging them to engage in promiscuity instead of learning self-control.
This is what happens when we, as a society, fail our children. We fail to present the holistic picture of sexuality within the context of a lifelong, secure relationship. We fail them when we present sex as a flagrant hobby to engage in without any consequences.
We fail them when instead of presenting models based on healthy, respectful relationships affirming self-worth and love, we confuse them with cheap alternatives that will ultimately hurt them. We tell them about sex but not about making love within marriage and, worst of all, we give them contraception to be safe. It is like telling a child that a live electricity wire can electrocute you if you touch it but that he or she can still play with the live wire with an insulating glove.
I suggest that we can do more for our kids than Grech’s suggestion.
We should be seeking to help preserve our children’s youth in a multitude of ways. The solution is not giving them earlier or more access to something that they are not mature enough for but helping them to grow, mature and develop in a holistic manner such that they can make better life choices later on in their lives.
Dr Miriam Sciberras
Children Asked About Abortion – OnlineForLife.org
What do you think children would say when asked about the reality of abortion? We asked, they responded.
Thanks to onlineforlife.org
EU Parliament to vote on the “right to abortion”
This campaign is a continuation of the campaign against the Tarabella report which was released last January 15, and managed to attract 60,413 signatures.
The European Parliament is about to vote on two reports that contain paragraphs that promote a so-called “right to abortion”. If these paragraphs are adopted, the European Parliament would both express support for abortion on behalf of the EU and overstep the competence of the EU, thereby treading on the principle of subsidiarity.
On 10 December 2013 the European Parliament rejected the so-called Estrela Report on “Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights” (SRHR). In its place, the Members of the European Parliament adopted a resolution that reaffirmed the principle of subsidiarity and clearly stated that “the formulation and implementation of policies on SRHR and on sexual education in schools is a competence of the Member States”.
The message is clear: the EU is not competent to decide on issues such as abortion or sexual education in schools. These are national competences and, by no means, issues to be decided on in Brussels.
Hundreds of thousands citizens opposed the Estrela Report in 2013! An important victory in favour of human dignity, subsidiarity and popular expression!
Important ground was won through this victory: thanks to the mobilisation of citizens across the European continent the European Parliament rejected a major attempt to promote a “right to abortion” at the EU level.
However, two reports are currently challenging the principle of subsidiarity as regards “SRHR” by pushing one of the Estrela report’s main points, namely a “right to abortion”.
The “Tarabella Report”: Mr Tarabella is the rapporteur of the annual European Parliament report on the equality between women and men in the European Union. A similar annual report was rejected in 2014, then known as the “Zuber report”. That report: “Maintains that women must have control over their sexual and reproductive health and rights, not least by having ready access to contraception and abortion” (paragraph 45).
Dr Deo Debattista – Pro-Life Practical Suggestions in Parliament
As an NGO committed to upholding and promoting life and human dignity, we welcome wholeheartedly the proposal made in Parliament for a pro-life clinic by the back bencher Dr. Deo Debattista on the 24th of February.
Anyone who loves peace and the common good cannot tolerate attacks and crimes against life. We, therefore endorse and support any programmes that safeguard life, especially when it is at its most vulnerable.
For his practical suggestion of providing assistance to expectant mothers in distress who consider abortion, Dr. Debattista deserves unreserved admiration and gets our full backing.
Dr. Miriam SCIBERRAS
Chairman Life Network
Pope’s Address at Meeting of Families in Manila
The angel of the Lord revealed to Joseph the dangers which threatened Jesus and Mary, forcing them to flee to Egypt and then to settle in Nazareth. So too, in our time, God calls upon us to recognize the dangers threatening our own families and to protect them from harm. Be attentive, be attentive with the new ideological colonization.
[In Spanish] There is an ideological colonization that we have to be careful of that tries to destroy the family. It’s not born of the dream that we have with God from prayer and from the mission that God gives us. It comes outside. And that’s why I say it’s colonization. Let us not lose the freedom to take that mission forward that God has given us. And just as our peoples in a moment in their history were able to say no to the period of colonization, as families we have to be very wise and very strong with fortitude to these initiatives of ideological colonization that could destroy the families and to ask the intercession of St. Joseph, who is a friend of the angel, to know when to say yes and when to say no.
The pressures on family life today are many. Here in the Philippines, countless families are still suffering from the effects of natural disasters. The economic situation has caused families to be separated by migration and the search for employment, and financial problems strain many households. While all too many people live in dire poverty, others are caught up in materialism and lifestyles which are destructive of family life and the most basic demands of Christian morality. This is the ideological colonization. The family is also threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life.
[In Spanish] I think of Blessed Paul VI, in a moment of that challenge of the growth of populations, he had the strength to defend openness to life. He knew the difficulties that families experienced and that’s why in his encyclical, he expressed compassion for particular cases. And he taught professors to be particularly compassionate with particular cases. But he went further. He looked to the peoples beyond. He saw the lack and the problem it could cause families in the future.
Paul VI was courageous, he was a good pastor and he warned his sheep about the wolves that were approaching. And from the heavens, he blesses us today.
Our world needs good and strong families to overcome these threats! The Philippines needs holy and loving families to protect the beauty and truth of the family in God’s plan and to be a support and example for other families. Every threat to the family is a threat to society itself. The future of humanity, as Saint John Paul II often said, passes through the family (cf.Familiaris Consortio, 85). The future passes through the family! So protect your families! See in them your country’s greatest treasure and nourish them always by prayer and the grace of the sacraments. Families will always have their trials, but may you never add to them! Instead, be living examples of love, forgiveness and care. Be sanctuaries of respect for life, proclaiming the sacredness of every human life from conception to natural death. What a gift this would be to society, if every Christian family lived fully its noble vocation! So rise with Jesus and Mary, and set out on the path the Lord traces for each of you.
Finally, the Gospel we have heard reminds us of our Christian duty to be prophetic voices in the midst of our communities. Joseph listened to the angel of the Lord and responded to God’s call to care for Jesus and Mary. In this way he played his part in God’s plan, and became a blessing not only for the Holy Family, but a blessing for all of humanity. With Mary, Joseph served as a model for the boy Jesus as he grew in wisdom, age and grace (cf. Lk 2:52). When families bring children into the world, train them in faith and sound values, and teach them to contribute to society, they become a blessing in our world. A family can become a blessing to the world. God’s love becomes present and active by the way of love and by the good works that we do. We extend Christ’s kingdom in this world. And in doing this, we prove faithful to the prophetic mission which we have received in baptism.
During this year which your bishops have set aside as the Year of the Poor, I would ask you, as families, to be especially mindful of our call to be missionary disciples of Jesus. This means being ready to go beyond your homes and to care for our brothers and sisters who are most in need. I ask you especially to show concern for those who do not have a family of their own, in particular those who are elderly and children without parents. Never let them feel isolated, alone and abandoned, but help them to know that God has not forgotten them.
[In Spanish]: I was very moved by the Mass today, when I visited that that home for children who had no parents. How many people in the Church work so that that house can become a home, a family! This is what it means to take forward prophetically the mission of the family.
You may be poor yourselves in material ways, but you have an abundance of gifts to offer when you offer Christ and the community of his Church. Do not hide your faith, do not hide Jesus, but carry him into the world and offer the witness of your family life!
Dear friends in Christ, know that I pray for you always! I pray today for the families. I do it! I pray that the Lord may continue to deepen your love for him, and that this love may manifest itself in your love for one another and for the Church. Don’t forget Jesus sleeping, don’t forget Joseph sleeping. Jesus slept under the protection of Joseph. Don’t forget to sleep is the prayer. Don’t forget the prayer of the family.
Pray often and take the fruits of your prayer into the world, that all may know Jesus Christ and his merciful love. Please, sleep also for me, pray also for me, for I truly need your prayers and will depend on them always!
Thank you very much!
[Original text: English]
© Copyright – Libreria Editrice Vaticana