Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1243341
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 3 MAY 2020 OPINION I guess it had to take a major global health emergency to make us finally understand what should really have been obvious all along. Yes, Dr Fearne: our na- tional policies should be based on scientific advice... and not on popular opinion, electoral con- cerns, or (still less) the demands of powerful lobby groups. It is, in fact, thanks to the health authorities' sci- ence-based approach that Mal- ta has so far been spared the nightmare scenarios we have seen unfolding almost every- where else in the world. As Fearne himself put it last Fri- day: "We are in today's positive situation because from the very beginning we abided by what science was telling us, and what the numbers were suggesting." And it is worth considering, too, how very 'positive' our sit- uation really is… and why we have succeeded so admirably, where so many others failed. After all, it was never some- thing we could take for grant- ed. Judging by the experience of other countries… we could just as easily have had a gov- ernment urging us all to pro- tect ourselves by 'drinking dis- infectant', like Donald Trump did in the USA. (Or, for that matter, by keeping the nation- al airport open at all costs… as the European Commission had recommended at the initial stages of the crisis.) Mercifully, however, Malta took all its COVID-19 policy decisions on the basis of sound scientific advice…. and the re- sults are there for all to see. While even the most devel- oped countries in the world saw their health services over- run by exponentially-increas- ing infection rates, and now number their dead by the tens of thousands… we have so far only had four fatalities to date, while successfully containing the spread of the virus within entirely manageable levels. What more proof do we all need, then, of the benefits of basing our national policies on science… as opposed to polit- ical idiocy, economic expedi- ence, or worse? Erm… well, perhaps we do need a little more proof; see- ing as how this 'scientific ap- proach' we now boast about, has so far been limited only to our policies concerning COV- ID-19 crisis, and precious little else. Looking beyond this one is- sue, however… I'll be damned if I can see a great many other areas where this government – or any other before it – ever bothered consulting scientific opinion before embarking on major policy decisions. Even within the same health sector, there are entire areas where science has been mark- edly absent for decades. Like abortion, for instance. Yes, yes, I know that the vast majority out there doesn't seem to realise that it's even a public health issue at all… preferring to think of it as an instant platform upon which to grandstand their own private views on morality. But that, like I said earlier, is a matter of popular opinion… not scientific fact. And didn't Chris Fearne just announce that he bases his health poli- cies on 'what science tells us'… as opposed to what the vast majority may pressure him to do, for entirely unscientific reasons? If that were really the case, however, our national abortion policy should also be based on what science has to say on the subject. And yet… well, what do you think really informs the present government's abortion policy more: science, or popu- lar opinion? We don't need to look very far for an answer. Fearne him- self told us, in no uncertain terms, in a radio interview on 21 December last year (when, if you'll remember, he was a major contestant in the Labour Party's leadership race.) Asked point-blank if he would 'introduce abortion' if elected… his answer was a sim- ple 'No'. And that was it. No further elaboration, no reference to any statistics, or scientific research of any kind whatsoever… not a word of explanation, for his dogged defence of an archaic abortion law – unchanged in over a century - which doesn't even allow for the procedure in cases where the mother's life may be in danger. Some 'scientific approach', huh? But then again… I sup- pose it's also entirely under- standable: given that there are, in fact, no scientific stud- ies that Fearne could possibly have cited in defence of such a radical, extremist and woefully unscientific position. There are, however, plenty of studies which suggest that our approach to this issue is not on- ly harmful to public health…. but even counter-productive to the main aim that it sets out to achieve: in the sense that it causes MORE abortions to take place, and not fewer. In September 2017, the World Health Organisation – you know, the same global in- stitution we all suddenly take seriously, when it comes to things like a COVID-19 pan- demic – published research in- to global abortion trends. The study found that there were 55.7 million abortions every year between 2010 and 2014 worldwide, and 17.1 million of them were 'unsafe'. A further eight million abor- tions were categorised as 'least safe': involving 'desperate and dangerous backstreet meas- ures, from swallowing toxic substances to inserting wires to try to bring about a miscar- riage…' Interestingly enough, both the 17.1 million 'unsafe abor- tions', and the eight million 'least safe' ones, were associ- ated with countries that – like Malta – have blanket abor- tion bans in all circumstanc- es: mostly in Africa and Latin America. And it is certainly no sur- prise that the same study also concluded that "there are few- er abortions in places where abortion is safest, such as in northern Europe and northern America where women can get contraception easily;" and that the lowest numbers were ac- tually found in countries that "have less restrictive laws on abortion, high contraceptive use, high economic develop- ment, high levels of gender equality, and well developed health infrastructures." That, Dr Fearne, is what 'sci- ence is telling you' about Mal- ta's policy on abortion. And you should already know this, because you yourself admitted (in February 2019) that this same policy was also the rea- son why Malta had dropped 10 places in the Euro Health Con- sumer Index. I assume you must therefore have read that report; and are thus aware that it also singled out Malta – alongside Cyprus and Poland – for stinging crit- icism over our national abor- tion regime. Just like the WHO report before it, this scientific study concluded that total abortion bans like ours "do not pre- vent abortions, but rather turn them into a major health risk, Raphael Vassallo Science should guide all our health policies… including abortion