Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1174220
25 OPINION maltatoday | SUNDAY • 6 OCTOBER 2019 If – with hindsight – she 'disagreed' with Muscat's handling of the Panama Papers… why did she vote the way she did, anyway? that Malta had also raised a vociferous objection – which is duly noted, in the same declaration – to the specific paragraph mentioning 'female reproductive rights'. And Helena Dalli, too, gave a very different answer from anything she's ever said lo- cally. Here, admittedly, the landscape is slightly different: unlike the two Borges, Dalli never militated in a party quite as gung-ho as the PN has always been when it comes to abortion. Also unlike the other two, she hails from a government that is justly proud of its recent record in the related spheres of equality and civil/human rights. So it came across as less of a contradiction, when she bluntly said she would not hesitate to grant all women, in all EU member states, full access to reproductive rights… 'without exception'. But a contradiction exists all the same. It is all very easy to say that sort of thing during a job interview for a European Commission posting; but it is somewhat harder to reconcile Helena Dalli's newfound posi- tion on female reproductive rights, with her own govern- ment's stolid insistence on re- taining Malta's total abortion ban in all circumstances. To put it another way: Hele- na Dalli can use the expression 'without exception' as much as she likes; in practical terms, however, there is – and will continue to be – an exception within the European Union when it comes to access to safe abortion. It simply doesn't ex- ist in Malta… because Helena Dalli's former government, like all its predecessors, is firmly committed to retaining the status quo. So once again, I would have expected a follow-up question: does Helena Dalli, in her new job as European Commis- sioner for Equality, intend to push her former government to ensure that Maltese women are, in fact, treated on an equal footing with women in all other 28 members states? Unless the answer is an unequivocal 'Yes' – in the sense that Helena Dalli will indeed see to it that Maltese women do get access to the same health services as all their counterparts, 'without exception' – her answer to that question will have to go down as completely and utterly meaningless. At least, however, she now has an opportunity to put her money where her mouth is. We now have five years to find out whether Helena Dalli was being honest in her answers (in which case, Malta will have to legalise abortion by 2024 at the earliest)… or whether… …oh well, you can work out the rest for yourselves.