Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1372546
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 16 MAY 2021 OPINION Raphael Vassallo Criminalising abortion doesn't save unborn lives. It just exposes women to danger I shall have to admit that the timing of this week's events has placed me in a bit of a quandary. Like many others, I was a little perplexed by Marlene Farru- gia's bolt-from-the-blue initi- ative last Wednesday. This is, after all, the same Marlene Far- rugia who – just four years ago – accused former prime minis- ter Joseph Muscat of wanting to "introduce abortion because he has no regard for the digni- ty of human life whether it is a frozen or unfrozen embryo." She also voted against embryo freezing in Parliament, on that basis; and she even went as far as to oppose the contraceptive pill, on the grounds that it is 'abortive'. I need hardly add, of course, that she was fully supported in those views by her partner (and fellow MP, representing PD at the time) Godfrey Farrugia… who, over the years, has been even more outspoken in his opposition to all things even remotely 'abortive'. And yet, this same staunchly pro-life couple has just co-pre- sented a private member's bill to decriminalise abortion: a move that has rightly been de- scribed as a 'historic first' for Malta… but which, let's face it, is also a torpedo fired directly into the engine-room of the Maltese political establishment (which has consistently swept the entire issue under the car- pet for decades). So what can I say? As some- one who has publicly advo- cated the decriminalisation of abortion for years, I can only welcome this sudden – and, to be honest, somewhat bizarre – change of heart. But coming as it does from a political duo that has an en- tire history of 'playing political games'… I can't help but ask myself the same question that seems to be on everyone's lips, all of a sudden. What, exactly, are the Farru- gias really playing at here? Besides: precisely because I do agree with the contents of Farrugia's private member's bill… I also have to question the strategy behind its timing. If the aim is really to kick-start a discussion that will lead to meaningful change… I can't think of a worse way to achieve it, than by batting the ball di- rectly into the court of two political parties that are both resolutely opposed to actually changing the status quo. Procedurally, this bill seems to be doomed from the very outset. As has been pointed out by others – including my col- league Matthew Vella, in this newspaper – it has to be ap- proved by the House Business Committee before it can even be discussed at all (let alone voted on). And there are a cou- ple of small problems there. One, the committee itself is composed of five men – Health Minister Chris Fearne, justice minister Edward Zammit Lew- is, Labour Whip Glenn Beding- field, Nationalist Whip Robert Cutajar, and PN deputy leader David Agius. And without in any way holding them respon- sible for a gender that they had no say in actually choosing, at the moment of their own con- ception: surely, it cannot be right that a committee of five men – no matter how well-in- tentioned – should now get to decide whether Malta's Parlia- ment debates a law which ulti- mately concerns the reproduc- tive health of women. For the same reason, inci- dentally, I cannot agree with those who argue that 'this is a woman's issue; therefore, men should just stay out of it altogether'. In this context, that argument merely supplies the House Business Commit- tee with all the justification it needs to simply place Marlene Farrugia's bill on the backburn- er… forever. In other words: no discus- sion; no vote; no change… everything just stays as it is. The second problem, how- ever, is that those five men (again, through no fault of their own) represent two political parties that have every reason under the sun to not want this issue debated at all. For reasons which are too obvious to even bother spelling out, it is sim- ply not in the interest of either the Labour or Nationalist Party to raise this notorious politi- cal bogey-man, at this precise juncture in time: i.e., just a few months before an election. And – unpleasant though it is to have to say this – we all know that both Labour and PN are only ever concerned with their own interests… and not with the interests of all the people (including the relative majority of the Maltese pop- ulation which actually agrees with decriminalisation) they supposedly represent in Parlia- ment. Being experienced politi- cians in their own right, both Marlene and Godfrey Farru- gia know this perfectly well. Surely, they will not have ex- pected their bill to be eagerly and enthusiastically placed on the agenda for discussion, by a political duopoly that would sooner slit its own wrists, than be forced to finally confront this particular issue (of all things). So… why did they present the bill at all, when they know that it has an ice cube's chance in hell of actually getting ap- proved by a Parliamentary majority? Where's the sense in this initiative? What is the strategy behind tabling it pre- cisely now…? Hence, I suppose, the quan- dary I mentioned earlier. The way things fell out this week, I shall have the opportunity to ask Marlene Farrugia those very questions directly (I write before my interview, which ap- pears here in this same news- paper.) So any speculation of my own is, at this stage, kind of useless, really. Instead, I shall simply outline my own reasons for agreeing wholeheartedly with the stated aims of the bill: starting with the most obvious. It proposes 'decriminalising' abortion… in other words, re- moving the abortion ban from the Criminal Code, where it is subject to the threat of a max- imum three-year prison sen- tence for women who termi- nate their own pregnancy (and the doctors who assist them), under any circumstance what- soever. Leaving aside my own person- al opinion – i.e., that it is simply uncivilised to threaten women with prison, for the grave crime of having found themselves in what is ultimately a crisis situ- ation – the harsh reality is that, "All our abortion ban really achieves in practice is to drive the entire practice underground – and thus expose women in Malta to serious, possibly life- threatening danger – without, it must be said, ever saving a single unborn life."