Whither Malta now? – Ivan Padovani

Marlene Farrugia, never one for the quiet life, has put in the long-anticipated plug for abortion legalisation in Malta. One has to marvel at the whimsiness of her views on this subject, among others, and it is hard to say where she will stand on the matter tomorrow but for today, at any rate, she appears to be fired by an irresistible compulsion to see to it that abortion is decriminalised, if not actually legalised altogether.

The Covid crisis spawned a population of overnight experts on virology and vaccinology. Truth and fiction became hopelessly intertwined. In all probability, the complexly nuanced differences between decriminalisation and outright legalisation will be subjected to the same process of befuddlement. Abortionists are exulting at the looming prospect of new legislation. After all, if the desired objective of randomly ripping babies to shreds in the womb is to be achieved, this is the direction change must take. They will, however, make a point of playing down the enormous import of decriminalisation. But the fact is that decriminalisation renders the act of killing the unborn child into something of no more legal significance than, say, parking on a double-yellow line. And to those who have not yet been quite anaesthetised to any sense of right and wrong, the inevitable implications of the deliberate trivialisation of the destruction of human life will be justifiably appalling.

Whither Malta now ? Our nation’s sense of ethics and morality has been under siege for a very long time. How well will it face down this last assault ?

If at all.
Time will tell.