Case of shameful hysteria? by Dr. Klaus Vella Bardon

 

Almost seven years ago, in September 2009, the Times of Malta reported that Joseph Muscat, the current Prime Minister, said he disagreed with the morning-after pill even in cases of rape. He added that he could not accept any method, including the morning-after pill, that stopped life.

Such a stand did not seem to ruffle the feathers of the public, not even highly educated women, Alternattiva Demokratika, the Humanist Association or any of the feminists who so vociferously cry out for women’s rights. None made their voice heard.

Yet, today the climate has changed, although the facts have not. The morning-after pill is a contraceptive but, if fertilisation has occurred, it has an abortifacient effect. In a culture where abortion is accepted and legalised, such a reality does not bother the public conscience.

As Ivan Padovani put it so eloquently (July 3 “If you don’t have a problem with abortion as a form of birth control, then you won’t have a problem with the morning-after pill either.”)

So far, Malta is different. It does not accept abortion. Should we be ashamed?

I can understand that some men are perfectly happy that women bear the responsibility of getting pregnant and are totally indifferent to whatever method they use. However, I am dismayed that so many women are willing to swallow hormonal drugs and implant devices in their wombs and even resort to abortion, all in the name of women’s so-called emancipation.

Some men are perfectly happy that women bear the responsibility of getting pregnant and are totally indifferent to whatever method they use

In an article of the Guardian (November 2014), Holly Grigg-Spall is decidedly against contraceptives. She writes: “When we take the pill our sex hormones are suppressed and replaced with synthetic versions, released in a steady stream. Gone are the fluctuations we experience monthly.

“This means every system related to our hormones is disrupted – our metabolic and endocrine systems and our immune system. This is what leads to the insidious, slow-build side-effects that women can experience. That’s the science behind the headlines.”

She adds: “A lack of feminism more widely might explain why research that connects the pill to increased risk of breast cancer, cervical cancer and pulmonary embolism leading to stroke or even death is more likely to get swept aside as anomalous or negligible.”

She concludes that women shouldn’t be expected, let alone encouraged, to sacrifice their health and well-being.

If anything, in the light of such facts, I would expect women to clamour for a male pill and place the onus of all the physiological and psychological disruption in the male camp. That would really be revolutionary and… equally stupid.

Even so, would women trust men who claim they are ‘on the pill’? The only pills men may be keen to take are those like Viagra that enhance their sexual potency.

Again, in 2009, Carl Djerassi, one of the key researchers who developed synthetic progesterone that led to the ‘pill’, outlined the “horror scenario” that occurred because of the population imbalance, for which his invention was partly to blame. He said that, in most of Europe, there was now “no connection at all between sexuality and reproduction”.

The fall in the birth rate in his country, Austria, he said, was an “epidemic” far worse but given less attention than obesity.

Scientists also point out that many so-called contraceptives have an abortifacient effect by preventing implantation of the embryo. Spanish doctor José Maria Simon Castellvi refers to the “devastating ecological effects” of the tons of hormones discarded into the environment each year, adding that sufficient data exists to show that one of the causes of male infertility in the West is the environmental contamination caused by the products of the ‘pill’.

Finally, contraceptive methods violate at least five important rights: the right to life, the right to health, the right to education, the right to information (its dissemination occurs to the detriment of information about natural methods) and the right of equality between the sexes (responsibility for contraceptive use almost always falls to the woman).

If such facts are branded hysterical and if criticism of contra­ceptives and abortifacients are criticised as shameful, then so be it. I hope that people who think rationally will conclude otherwise.

Dr. Klaus Vella Bardon is deputy chairman of Life Network Foundation Malta.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20160718/opinion/Case-of-shameful-hysteria.619194

Emergency contraceptive pills by Dr. Mario Saliba

The issue of emergency contraception has been around for decades but up until now our laws did not allow doctors to prescribe such pills as they are not available in a single pill form wrongly called ‘morning-after pill’. I am writing this piece in my capacity as a family doctor. As GPs we are the first doctors to encounter requests for such measures as emergency contraception.

First of all I must say that contraceptive pills have been on the local market for decades and some doctors use them as a form of emergency contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancies after a couple would have performed sex a number of hours before. This is done by giving more than one and up to six contraceptive tablets in one dose depending on the brand, followed by a second loading dose 12 hours later. These can be given up to 120 hours after intercourse. So we must not illude ourselves that emergency contraception is not practised in Malta.

The problem arose when a single pill wrongly called ‘morning-after pill’ of whatever brand was proposed to be made legal. These emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) can be taken up to 120 hours after intercourse and can still be effective, so it is not just the morning after. On the international market there are three types of such pills.

Scientifically we know that life begins with fertilisation but the pro-ECPs lobbyists say instead pregnancy begins with implantation

There are, the combined containing both, oestrogen and progestin, progestin-only and others containing an anti-progestin. The latter are out of the question for many women, as they are used as abortion pills and currently only available in Armenia, China, Russia and Vietnam. So the first thing which should be cleared is which of these will be available.
They have different mechanisms of action, effectiveness and side effects. What is most important in my opinion is their mode of action. It is known that combined pills can inhibit or delay ovulation provided you take them before ovulation.
Now the time of ovulation is difficult to calculate and there is no easy and practical way of knowing. So these are very effective if taken during the first half of the menstrual cycle, before ovulation has occurred. In this case they are purely preventing ovulation and there is no question of being abortive.

But if taken later on they act by impairing endometrial receptivity to subsequent implantation of a fertilised egg. So we are speaking of a life which has already begun even though a bunch of cells. Scientifically we know that life begins with fertilisation but the pro-ECPs lobbyists say instead pregnancy begins with implantation, which is totally different.

At this stage human life has already started, so these pills have an abortive effect. Also, these combined pills are as effective as it is claimed because they must have a mechanism of action other than delaying or preventing ovulation.

Regarding the other type of pills, the levonorgestrel-only pills, their method of action is dual. If taken before ovulation the primary mechanism of action is blockade and/or of ovulation. So in such cases only, they are purely contraceptive and they have no abortive effect. But the reduced efficacy of these pills with a delay in treatment suggests that interference with implantation is likely.

These are the objective facts.

My point is that, no matter what is their mode of action in general and how this is stated on the package insert, every pill when taken acts on a unique way on a particular patient.

Nobody knows what really happens, whether a prevention of ovulation or prevention of implantation has occurred. Both things can happen.

In the latter case it is abortion.

Dr. Mario Saliba is a specialist in family medicine.

Ref: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20160707/opinion/Emergency-contraception-pills.618002

The presence of a human life by Dr. Ivan Padovani

The presence of a human life

Mark Anthony Falzon (June 19) makes a creditable argument in support of the introduction of the so-called ‘Morning-After Pill’ (MAP) in Malta.

I agree with his view on accreditation. I would go further, in fact, and lament the haste with which people seem to deliver themselves of their uninformed, often severely prejudiced, opinions, only adding fuel to the confusion of already-complex subjects, to the detriment of all involved.

The main problem with Mr Falzon’s perspective is that he makes the same error that hordes of others are making in the course of this discussion. This error centres on the acceptance of a tacit presumption that merely editing the definition of when a pregnancy officially begins has any bearing on the presence or otherwise of a human life. This detail is so exclusively crucial to the entire issue of the properties of the MAP that it must be looked at a lot more closely.

Years ago, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists chose to re-define the origin of pregnancy as the point at which the fertilised egg, following passage through the Fallopian tubes, is successfully implanted in the uterus.

This newly minted definition chimed so well with the emergence of the MAP that it remains anybody’s guess as to whether it was purely coincidental or not, but the fact of the matter is that it meant that this pill, from being something that could end a pregnancy, was transformed overnight into something that only ever prevented it from occurring.

The trouble began once the work of re-defining the initialisation of pregnancy had been completed. Little further thought seems to have been given to the status of the human embryo from the moment of its conception, through its lonely journey down the Fallopian Way, up to the point of implantation.

Consequently, it was left to a universal audience to subconsciously infer that this entity had ceased to be of significance. In fact, the entire construct of the pill’s modus operandi is predicated on an insidious suggestion that the state of pregnancy and the existence of a human life are co-dependent and interchangeable terms. This is, quite simply, untrue.

At the beginning of fertilisation, a new human being begins to exist

So-called ‘test tube’ babies are living proof of the presence of a newly created human life independent of any pregnancy.

The point is that the definition of the commencement of pregnancy may be tinkered with from time to time but the moment of creation of a human life is scientifically beyond dispute.

The ‘Carnegie Stages of Early Human Embryonic Development’ are often referred to as “the Bureau of Standards” of human embryology. They are verified and documented by the international Terminologia Embryologica committee, which consists of more than 20 experts, academically credentialed specifically in human embryology, from around the world. After reviewing the latest research studies in human embryology, their deliberations are published in the international Nomina Embryologica, part of the larger Nomina Anatomica.

It is clearly acknowledged that at the beginning of fertilisation, when the sperm penetrates the oocyte, a new, living, genetically unique, single-cell human being begins to exist. This has been known scientifically for almost 130 years, (e.g., in the work of Wilhelm His.)

These are the long-known and long-acknowledged objective scientific

facts of when sexually reproduced human beings begin to exist. They have been and remain the international standards used today.

The notion that the very existence of a human life is dependent on the current definition of a pregnancy, and that the absence of one necessarily defines the absence of the other, is the core fallacy of the MAP campaign.

Broadly speaking, there are three mechanisms of action attributable to the MAP. Two are exclusively contraceptive in nature. The third, however, is abortive and it is this that is the focus of all objections.

Essentially, if it happens that fertilisation has already taken place, i.e., an embryo exists, the MAP prevents it from implanting – and death follows.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, professional opinions on this, the third mechanism of operation, are not unanimous. There seems to be evidence that it may not operate as claimed. But there is a whole lot more that indicates it does.

In conclusion, if you don’t have a problem with abortion as a form of birth control, then you won’t have a problem with the morning-after pill either. But if you do, then it’s a matter of very serious concern.

What does emerge clearly, however, is that if the principle of informed consent still has any meaning, then the least that the MAP’s manufacturers and proponents owe to society is a realistic confirmation of its full potential.

When all is done and dusted, it may well turn out that Gift of Life were nearer the mark than many were led to believe.

Dr. Ivan Padovani is a board member of Life Network Foundation Malta

Ref: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20160703/opinion/The-presence-of-a-human-life.617526

Let’s celebrate life by Dr. Klaus Vella Bardon

It is rather disconcerting and depressing to witness the manner in which the so-called liberal agenda is being forced through in Malta. The latest attempt to undermine the value of the fullness of life is the judicial protest by a group of women clamouring for the ‘right’ to have the ‘morning after pill’ available in Malta.

Labour whip Dr Godfrey Farrugia dismissed their arguments that the ‘morning-after pill’ is a reproductive right, adding that: “Freedom of thought, opinion, liberty and to assemble are human rights, but interfering with the very origins of life do not fulfil those rights.”

Malta always seems to be in a hurry to adopt lifestyles and cultures that have proved so damaging to the social framework elsewhere. The facts speak for themselves.

Pope Paul VI cautioned about the consequences of the contraception culture that was ushered in with the widespread use of the ‘pill’ in the 1960s. He prophetically warned that contraception would lead to promiscuity, loss of respect for life, marriage and the family, and breakdown of essential social structures.

Statistics clearly show the close link between divorce rates and abortion with the use of contraceptives. Besides undermining the family, their use has resulted in a demographic catastrophe in Western countries where the birth rate is so low that there are not enough young people to run the economy and sustain an increasingly ageing population.

Yet the powerful financial interests of the pharmaceutical giants downplay the side-effects of contraceptives, some of which are very serious indeed, such as the higher predisposition to breast, cervical and uterine cancer and vascular disorders.

The West has succumbed to forces lined up against human life, marriage, the family and religion.

This is obvious in the aggressive inclusion of contraceptive and abortion programmes linked to so-called aid to poorer countries. The cheap way to help the under­privileged is to deny them having children rather empowering them to escape the cycle of poverty.

Yet those who challenge the contraceptive culture are branded as suppressing liberty of women. Nothing could be further from the truth. Behind the fine talk of ‘the woman’s body’ and ‘woman’s choice’ lie the egoistic interests of men who are only too ready to leave reproductive responsibility in the lap of women. Women are saddled with taking powerful hormonal drugs, with inserting devices in their womb and then being scolded if they get pregnant – as if this was an unforeseeable result of sexual intercourse. They are then often faced between choosing abortion or being abandoned.

It is therefore essential that we educate young people to treasure life in its fullness and realise the importance of appreciating their human dignity. Young women in particular should cherish their bodies as they carry the sanctuary where life begins, is nurtured and grows.

Young people have to realise that their happiness depends on the loyalty and security that only love in all its totality can bring. People are being sold the false idea that respect, responsibility and sacrifice diminish the joy of life.

Women sell themselves cheaply when they willingly reduce themselves to commodities readily available with no strings attached to any transient romance that comes their way.

The callous disregard of some people at the possibility of destroying life with contraceptive drugs is a sad reflection of the sorry state of our society and the depths to which we have allowed ourselves to sink.

Contrary to what many think, such negative trends are not inevitable. Countries like the US are increasingly aware of the negative consequences of a contraceptive culture and the tide is turning as the younger generations become more aware of the consequences of irresponsible life choices that result in broken relationships and abortion.

Let us celebrate life by educating our youth to cherish their sexuality and find the discipline to cultivate relationships that are life-giving in all their dimensions and are underpinned by passionate love that does not wane in spite of the challenges that life inevitably brings.

Ref: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20160626/religion/Let-s-celebrate-life.616779

Press Release in response to the judicial protest to call for the legalisation of the morning-after pill in Malta

Press Release in response to the judicial protest to call for the legalisation of the morning-after pill in Malta.

Human embryonic life starts from conception. The egg released from the woman is fertilised by the sperm and the embryo created continues to grow as the new human life travels down to implant in the mother’s womb.

One of the effects of the morning after pill or emergency contraception is the  alteration of the lining of the womb such that the embryo will not be able to implant and is thus intentionally lost.  This is called the anti nidation (anti nesting) effect and is abortifacient.

The sale or use of abortifacients is prohibited by law.

In Malta, human life has always been protected from conception by successive governments.

Let us continue to keep the unborn protected from conception.

Co Signed by

Dr Miriam Sciberras

Life Network Foundation Malta,

Mr  Paul Vincenti

Gift of Life Foundation

Mr Anthony Mifsud

Malta Unborn Child Movement

The spectre of eugenics by Adrian Porter

Today, the mention of the word ‘eugenics’ hardly attracts any interest. It is a word that seems to have vanished from our vocabulary, but eugenics is a reality of which most of us are largely unaware.

The word “eugenics” was coined in 1910 by an Englishman named Francis Galton, who termed it the ‘new religion’. He advocated “the betterment of mankind” as he wanted to improve the physical and mental make-up of human beings by increasing the proportion of those people with “superior genetic endowment”.

This ideology was enthusiastically greeted by the intelligentsia in Great Britain and the US. In Britain, these included figures such as H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Marie Stopes, John Maynard Keynes, J.B.S. Haldane, Bertrand Russell, Sidney Webb and Winston Churchill. Intentional killing, sterilisation and birth control were, in Wells’ view, a sound way of eliminating what he regarded as inferior peoples. He, along with his fellow eugenicists, believed that evolution, operating on its own, was not sufficiently effective.

Eugenics was not merely a utopian idea: it formed the basis of concrete policies; it led to the immigration-restriction statutes of the 1920s in the USA. But there were more direct and telling effects. Thirty-three American states passed laws that allowed the forced sterilisation of those deemed “unfit”. The Supreme Court’s upholding by eight votes to one of a Virginia law signalled their general acceptability and led to thousands of enforced sterilisations in the US.

Apart from G.K. Chesterton, no one spoke out against it. Almost singlehandedly, with his scathing wit and sense of humour, he succeeded in swaying public opinion in his country. Chesterton brushed off the derision and the insults he received. He was not fooled by labels and slogans and he fought for what he believed in, despite the odds. He challenged eugenics, strongly declaring that it ought “to be destroyed” as “a thing no more to be bargained about than poisoning”. He passionately believed in the right and duty of a free man to stand in a public place and say what he thought to be true.

Unfortunately, the ideology of eugenics was wholeheartedly embraced by Hitler and by 1939, within six years of his coming to power, a quarter of a million Germans were sterilised. This paved the way for euthanasia and the wholesale murder of the so-called ‘sub-humans’ and the ‘Final Solution’ of Jews in Europe.

The horrors of Hitler’s Germany revealed after WWII helped to discredit eugenics. As a result, the victorious Allies, from the Nuremberg Trials to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, sought to vindicate the inviolable dignity of individuals.

Yet the notorious founder of the Planned Parenthood Foundation (PPF), the American, Margaret Sanger, who also pioneered eugenics, was quick to distance herself from eugenics and re-invented herself as a promoter of women’s ‘rights’ to contraception and abortion.

Her organisation remains an upholder of modern population control and eugenics. It uses its considerable finances to promote and facilitate internationally, sterilisation, abortion, contraception and also infanticide (particularly in China). It is funded to the tune of billions of dollars by the US, the UK and other Western governments. The ‘Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’ is also a key contributor.

Sadly, eugenics is also making a powerful comeback with the advances in genetic medicine. John Harris, a bioethicist at Manchester University, told the BBC in 2003 that eugenics was a laudable aim as: “It is the attempt to create fine healthy children and that’s everyone’s ambition.” Test-tube baby pioneer and expert on pre-implantation diagnosis, Robert Edwards, says: “Soon it will be a sin for parents to have a child that carries the heavy burden of genetic disease. We are entering a world where we have to consider the quality of our children.”

Once again, the inherent dignity of man is being sacrificed for the value of expediency. Expectant women are now submitting themselves to screening technologies designed to identify a “worthless life” and replace it with a “worthwhile life”.

The disgraceful emotional pressure applied to women to terminate a pregnancy is conveniently ignored as state policies in Europe’s aim to eliminate ‘defective’ babies. Coupled with the legislation of euthanasia to eliminate the terminally ill, it is all part of a pattern. It is eugenics all over again. The weak, the ill and the impaired are now at risk.

Chesterton saw that truth in eugenics long before the Nazis made it clear to the world. We should heed his warnings.

To be ‘well meaning’ is not enough. As the saying goes: ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’. A failure to remember and absorb the lessons of history carries dire consequences. When fundamental principles are forfeited, humanity is at risk.

Ref: http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2016-06-12/newspaper-letters/The-spectre-of-eugenics-6736159206

Chesterton and Eugenics

Recently in the TV programme Insiders, screened on Euronews, Malta was portrayed in a negative light as abortion is not legalised. Sadly, Malta is the only EU country that stands tall over this most fundamental of issues, the right to life.

Unfortunately, Europe has undergone a profound revolution in its value systems that has resulted in the legislation of abortion, euthanasia and the adoption of reproductive technologies that disregard the sanctity of life from its early stages, resulting in treating the human embryo as a commodity.

Despite the advances in medical science that aim at eliminating suffering and disabilities, there have also been negative developments. Medical techniques and procedures, instead of being used to treat illness, disease and genetic defects, are increasingly being used to eliminate the unwanted, unfit and imperfect individuals.

These developments are not as progressive as we think. The term “eugenics” was coined about one hundred years ago, in the 19th century, by an Englishman named Francis Galton, influenced by his cousin Charles Darwin.

This new concept of eugenics, the breeding of the perfect being and the weeding out of the unfit was greeted with remarkable enthusiasm by the majority of the wealthy and intelligentsia in UK. This infectious ideology spread to US and set root in Germany with frightful consequences.

One of the leading proponents of eugenics was the American woman, Margaret Sanger, who founded the Planned Parenthood. She aggressively promoted birth control and the widespread use of contraceptives. She said she wanted to use birth control to remove the unfit from the gene pool. Under the term “unfit”, she meant not only the physically handicapped and the mentally retarded, but also, specifically, “Hebrews, Slavs, Catholics, and Negroes”.

Sanger was also a member of the American Eugenics Society, which successfully lobbied for sterilization laws that targeted society’s undesirables and unwanted. The US was to carry out campaigns that ended up sterilising thousands of individuals right up to the 1970s.

When man loses his moral bearing, wrong-headed ideas have evil consequences. Sadly, we seem to have learnt very little
 

Eugenic ideology also led to the Immigration Act of 1924, which created quotas for immigrants from southern and eastern Europe that remained in effect until 1965, justifying such racist policies on the grounds of preventing the ‘contamination of American stock’.

Almost alone, G. K Chesterton stood up against this despicable philosophy and with his proverbial scathing wit and rock-solid logic mocked and poured scorn on such ideas.

Meanwhile the likes of Sanger and other supporters of eugenics had nothing but praise for the progressive methods being adopted by Hitler in purifying German stock. With the fall of Nazi Germany, the world was shocked with horrors of the concentration camps and the Holocaust.

When man loses his moral bearing, wrong-headed ideas have evil consequences. Sadly, we seem to have learnt very little.

Unfortunately, eugenics is back with a vengeance. The original arguments in favour of eugenics have become the same arguments in favour of birth control, abortion, and euthanasia.

The Western world is adopting new technologies in­cluding genetic engineering, selective abortion, re­productive technologies that involve the donation of sperm from men with high IQs, ‘eugenically superior’ eggs, and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, to achieve the aims of quality-controlled chil­dren.

Women are being subjected to screening and pressure is being applied to force them to abort foetuses which are considered inferior. The recent development of ‘safe’ methods to diagnose children with Down’s syndrome is already having a powerful impact in UK. Countries now congratulate themselves that they do not have children with birth defects, even defects that are eminently treatable such as hare lip.

Instead of being used for its noble purpose, treating people and alleviating suffering, modern medicine is being used more and more to eliminate and sacrifice the patient.

One could say that Chesterton was prophetic. He could foresee where decisions based on narrow self interest in the absence of a moral framework would lead us and he used his formidable intellect to expose this in his book Eugenics and Other Evils that was published in 1922.

Almost a hundred years later, the issue has not gone away, nor have any of Chesterton’s arguments gone out of date.

We are fortunate that once again, two outstanding Chestertonians, Ian Boyd and Dermot Quinn will be holding a conference on Friday in Malta where they will address this vital issue of eugenics and the impact such ideas would have on our society.

They will also refresh our memory by presenting the exceptional ability of GKC to demolish the myth that good ideals can be achieved by shoddy means.

Malta still prides itself in regarding the life of persons as sacred and inviolable. Science can be an important tool for effective public policy, but if it is not tempered by an unfailing respect for individual rights, then it will lead to deplorable policies.

Klaus Vella Bardon is vice-chairman of the Life Network Foundation Malta.

‘Women on Waves’ denies plans to fly abortion drones over Malta, could possibly visit by boat

Pro-choice group ‘Women on Waves’ has denied that it will be flying drones over Malta which drop abortion medication, as it did recently in Poland, but did not exclude visiting Malta on their infamous boat.

Women on Waves appropriately made waves after they flew ‘abortion drones’ from the border of Germany over Roman Catholic Poland, dropping abortion medication. The group considered it a success after it was found that two Polish woman had ingested the abortion pills.

“Just a few months ago the human rights committee [United Nations] had stated that making abortion illegal is a violation of women’s human rights, so Malta is violating human rights as well. They should start changing their laws to be in line with other European countries and legalise abortion,” said Dr Rebecca Gomperts, founder and director of Women on Waves.

A United Nations Committee on Human Rights ruled that in the case of a Peruvian women who was denied an abortion even though her child was sure to die within days of being born, her human rights were not respected and ordered the hospital in question to compensate her. This was a landmark case which “affirmed” the UN’s position that abortion is a human right, according to The Huffington Post.

The Amsterdam-based group describes itself on its online platform as:

“Women on Waves aims to prevent unsafe abortions and empower women to exercise their human rights to physical and mental autonomy. We trust that women can do a medical abortion themselves and make sure that women have access to medical abortion and information through innovative strategies. But ultimately it is about giving women the tools to resist repressive cultures and laws. Not every woman has the possibility to be a public activist but there are things we can all do ourselves.”

Medical abortions refer to ingesting medication that can induce abortion. This differs to surgical abortion, which tends to be done later at a more developed stage and involves an invasive procedure.

In Malta, if found guilty of having an abortion, women could face a three-year prison sentence, while carrying out abortions can land a person four years in jail, and a doctor could have his licence to practice medicine removed.

Dr Gomperts revealed that Women on Waves receives around 65 e-mails per year from Maltese women asking for assistance on unwanted pregnancies.

An article published in the Christian Post said that Women on Waves will be targeting Ireland and Malta next; however Dr Gomperts has denied this.

Asked why Malta will not see ‘abortion drones’ flying over its airspace, she said that “Malta is far away” and the drones do not have the reach to be sent from Sicily or Italy to Malta. She stressed however that the group does not exclude visiting the island again by sea. She also said that the group will continue to fly their drones.

“Basically Women on Waves always look for innovative ways to get abortion pills to women in need. We use the ship, the WOW online project; the drone is another tactic we are using to bring the medication to women,” she said.

Back in 2007, Dr Gomperts came to Malta and held a press conference at Castille. Her visit was met with opposition by a pro-life group called ‘gift of life,’ together with other conservative sections of society.

Many media reports had emerged at the time stating that Dr Gomperts’ pro-choice group would be visiting Malta by ship to provide women with medical abortions and counselling.

They would have remained in international waters in order to provide this service – however it was anticipated that due to their licensing requirements, which needed a regional hospital agreement, this could be an obstacle.

It was largely believed that no hospital in Malta or Gozo would agree to this; however it was reported that such an agreement with a Sicilian hospital could allow them to provide abortive services in international waters.

Ref: http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2016-05-23/local-news/Women-on-Waves-denies-plans-to-fly-abortion-drones-over-Malta-could-possibly-visit-by-boat-6736158182

3rd Chesterton Conference in Malta – 10th June 2016

Chesterton & Eugenics – The challenge of our time is the theme of the third Chesterton conference in Malta to be held on June 10 at 7 pm at the CAK Conference Hall, B’kara.

Two distinguised speakers from Seton Hall University (New Jersey, USA): Fr. Ian Boyd and Dr. Dermot Quinn will be giving two short talks entitled “Chesterton and the Culture of Life” and “Chesterton and the Challenge of Eugenics“. This will be followed by a Q&A session.

The conference is being organised in collaboration with the Life Network Foundation Malta and GK Chesterton Malta. It is open to the public and entrance is free.

For further information please call 7959 1875

 

Chesterton Eugenics - Info