Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1202670
10 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 22 JANUARY 2020 OPINION SINCE January 11, there is has been a lot of talk about the 'end' of the Joseph Muscat era (al- ready extending to how history will 'judge' his impact on the national psyche, and all that). Evidently, however, nobody bothered informing Joseph Muscat that his time is actual- ly up. And judging by his last speech as Prime Minister, he himself does not seem to view his present predicament as ei- ther permanent or irreversible. On the contrary, he was still trying to script the terms of his own departure, right down to the very last minute. Far from fading quietly into the background, Muscat bowed out with a promise to remain ac- tive in the civil liberties sphere. Admittedly, he didn't go as far as to utter the dreaded 'a'-word by name; but he did specify civil liberties where "every individ- ual, every man and, above all, every woman, can take their de- cisions freely"; and that doesn't leave many options, in a coun- try where most of the other civil rights battles – divorce, IVF, emergency contraception, marriage equality, etc. – have already been fought and won. Muscat also said: "Looking forward, without the weight of a position and a programme, I will be more free to say everything I believe and how my thoughts have evolved with regards to civil liberties." Tellingly, he added: "Not everyone will see me in a good way when that time comes, but I feel indebted to future gener- ations…" As such, we didn't even need news articles quoting 'inside sources' to guess that Muscat intends to somehow or other reignite the call of a 'national debate on abortion': thus prom- ising to remain visible on the political radar for at least some time to come. But to me, the bigger question is not so much 'what' he intends to do… but 'why'. Never mind the obvious pos- sibility that his cryptic parting shot was just a diversionary tactic, aimed at distracting at- tention from the humiliation of his spectacular downfall. That much we can almost take for granted. But why abortion, of all issues? Could it just be because this one issue has historically served as a smokescreen for creating instant outrage and panic (this case being no exception)? Could it serve some other, subliminal political purpose? Or did Muscat really experi- ence a change of heart on this issue… possibly influenced by his experience defending Mal- ta's dubious policies on the in- ternational stage? As someone who backs calls for a reform of our restrictive abortion laws, I find it hard to believe that Joseph Muscat is serious in his intentions ini- tiate a discussion on abortion today… if nothing else, because he spent seven full years as prime minister doggedly ignor- ing repeated calls for precisely the same discussion: not just from the Council of Europe, but also from local NGOs such as 'Women [and Doctors] For Choice'. At this stage, it is important to clarify exactly what sort of dis- cussion we've been avoiding all these years. For some time now, the 'Voic- es for Choice' coalition has been calling for safe, legal ac- cess to abortion in a number of specific cases: namely, where there is a threat to the mother's life or health (including mental health); in cases of rape and in- cest; and in the event of termi- nal foetal defects. Without entering the merits of the actual issue, these chang- es would bring our legislation in line with the European norm: including in other 'pro-life' EU countries such as Austria and Ireland, where abortion restric- tions were as draconian as ours until fairly recently. This is, in fact, the whole point behind the 'national dis- cussion' Muscat now seems to want to have. Regardless where one stands in the pro-life/pro- choice spectrum itself, there are clearly gaps in our current leg- islative set-up: gaps which have proved fatal in other countries, before their laws were changed. In Ireland, it had to take the death of a young woman – Savita Halappanavar – for the country to finally realise that its supposedly 'pro-life' policies were actually a direct threat to the life and health of pregnant women. And this is precisely the sce- nario that Voices For Choice is trying to avoid locally, by urging the government to amend our abortion laws while we're still in time. All these arguments (and more: there's also the issue of whether women should be im- prisoned for terminating preg- nancies) were put to Joseph Muscat in the days when he was still prime minister; and at a time when he enjoyed unprece- dented popularity and power in the country. Yet all along he resisted even discussing the issue… just like every prime minister before him. So the fact that he would suddenly 'see the light' only now – literally minutes before stepping down from the only position in which he could have actually made a difference - is almost a case of adding insult to injury. This leaves us with the alter- native view that there was no real change of heart at all; i.e., that Joseph Muscat had ulterior motives for dangling this pros- pect before our eyes at such a late stage. It could be, as pointed out elsewhere, that the tactic was aimed at further splintering the Opposition, in the same way as Muscat had so easily (and suc- cessfully) done with divorce, IVF and marriage equality. If so, however, he may have precipitated a dilemma for more than just the PN and a handful of civil society NGOs. He has also surprised and con- fused his own supporters within the Labour Party: of whom the overwhelming majority firmly believe that 'abortion is mur- der', under any circumstanc- es... regardless of Muscat's own opinion in the matter. These, too, are among the ones who will "not see [Muscat] in a good way" when his intentions become visible to everyone. So in the longer term, Muscat may also be sabotaging the root cause of his (already dwindling) popularity among the Labour Party grassroots. Meanwhile, he has also caused a problem for his replacement Robert Abela: who was forced to publicly pit himself against his former mentor, raising the spectre of party disunity that still haunts Labour from the old Sant-Mintoff days in the late 1990s. The issues were admittedly a far cry from one another – and this one seems unlikely to ever cause a meaningful Parliamen- tary split – but Muscat remains both an MP, and Abela's imme- diate predecessor (as Mintoff was to Sant); so the first flickers of a showdown between the two would no doubt have also rekin- dled unpleasant memories of those distant, troubled times. It is hard to imagine that a seasoned politician like Mus- cat would not be fully aware of how his words would be inter- preted; so I can only conclude that his declaration was indeed an attempt to somehow 'condi- tion' the new Prime Minister… perhaps to remind Abela that neither he, nor his 'movement of progressive moderates', will be leaving the building any time soon. Either way, his efforts have on- ly reinforced Abela's image as a dyed-in-the-wool conservative moulded from the same stuff as his father, former President George Abela. More than driving a wedge through the PN and its splinter groups, then, Muscat's part- ing shot appears to have prized open a (very small) gap between the Labour Party, and the mi- croscopic minority that actually agrees with the need for reform in our country's abortion laws. Exactly why Muscat would want to do that – when his stated intention appears to be to champion their cause – is at best a mystery, at this stage. Above all, however, his last flourish as Prime Minister has very clearly placed the pro- choice coalition in an awkward quandary. Until recently, the liberals who make up that coalition might have looked towards 'progres- sive' Labour with more favour than a historically (and almost fanatically) 'anti-choice' PN. But in the light of recent events, many of its members are simply too repulsed by Muscat's politi- cal persona to ever bring them- selves to publicly agree with him (even when, at heart, they do). And yet – regardless of his personal motives– Joseph Mus- cat has now positioned him as the only serving Maltese MP to have ever openly backed calls for discussion on abortion law reform; and while the coalition itself may argue (not unreason- ably) that "women's rights are not the fiefdom of politicians to be pulled out of the bag at opportune moments"… in re- ality, it is only through political action that their own demands can ever realistically be met. The bottom line, then, is that… yes, we do need a nation- al debate on abortion in Malta; and yes, politicians do have to be part of it. But it cannot be a debate forced open only by political opportunism; nor can it be led by a politician whose very name provokes such divisive emo- tional responses either way. In the end, then, Muscat's en- dorsement of this discussion may well end up inadvertently aborting it instead. And who knows? In a twisted way, that too might have been part of his in- tention all along… Raphael Vassallo How to abort a national discussion