Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1493026
9 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 19 FEBRUARY 2023 NEWS women who found jobs in fac- tories who were not forced to abort when abandoned by their partners. And unlike rabid an- ti-abortionists who often de- scribe abortion as some sort of caprice, Mintoff insisted that any woman who resorts to an abortion is surely not going for "some picnic" ('xalata'). Court reports from the time clearly show that women were risking their life in back-street abortions while those assisting them faced prison. One case in point was a nine-month sen- tence inflicted on Italian-born Anna Cassar, found guilty of 'attempted' abortion on a young woman who had paid her Lm100 (in 1980, nation- al minimum wage was below Lm60 a week) to carry out the procedure. After two failed in- terventions which caused the unnamed girl "enormous pain", the girl ended up in hospital suffering from internal bleed- ing. Wires, syringes and med- icines were found in a chest in Cassar's home. 'Worse than cats' – how the PN referred to women who abort Although Labour was far from introducing abortion, judging from the hysterical reactions of the Nationalist opposition, the motion did ruffle some feathers in the establishment. An editorial on the PN's or- gan In-Nazzjon Tagħna pub- lished in May 1980 went as far as saying "that there is no dif- ference between the murder of a mature person and one in the womb" and attacked the whole notion that abortion is a wom- en's right, arguing that "Mal- tese women love their children and surely would not butcher their children," and that "they will surely not behave worse than cats". Another editorial on In-Naz- zjon Tagħna in June 1980 warned that the motion ap- proved by Labour would "open the door for the erosion of so- cietal values". And while recognising that not all cases of abortion are the same, the PN's organ insisted that abortion is "always mur- der" even if some murders are "mitigated by circumstances". While Mintoff exhorted wom- en to take the lead and speak up, the PN daily reminded the Church of its "right and duty to teach what is right or wrong" while adding that "it could not imagine the Church remaining silent on such a subject." Unsurprisingly the debate was soon swamped by silly partisan broadsides, with some Labour exponents unable to resist a dig at the PN's pro-western in- ternational affiliation. A young Leo Brincat went as far as chas- tising the PN for scaremonger- ing on abortion in Malta, while congratulating Simone Veil up- on her appointment as the first President of the European Par- liament, describing the Holo- caust survivor who authored the French abortion law as "a friend of the PN". And an editorial on the GWU daily l-Orizzont published in April accused the PN of in- venting the lie that Labour was about to introduce abortion "in the same way as the Europeans of Cain (a derogatory term for western Europe) whose friend- ship they cherish, did." Labour was right in pointing out the dissonance between the PN's European orientation and its retrograde moral agenda, but in doing so it also paid homage to the worse aspect of Maltese ex- ceptionalism. For unlike Spain, which ditched its conservatism with fascism by aligning itself with western democracies, Malta drifted into autarky. An aborted debate? For a brief period of time, there was some debate in the Labour-aligned media thanks to left-wing voices influenced by continental feminism. One case in point was Li- no Briguglio, who called on men even within the party to emancipate themselves from antiquated views which rel- egated women to mere ap- pendages. 'Forum', a page on it-Torċa moderated by future Frans Ghirxi, included letters in favour of family planning centres, with Marian Farru- gia from Msida arguing that "women should have the right to decide if and when to give birth" and that family planning centres should inform women on which contraceptive meth- ods available are best suited for them. Joseph Cachia from Bir- gu went further, arguing that the laws against abortion go against freedom and in some cases threatened the lives of women: Cachia argued that while family planning clinics were important, this did not substitute the need for safe abortion in hospitals. A call for more discussion on abortion was made by a young- er Evarist Bartolo, later Labour MP and minister, who has late- ly expressed reservations on a proposed amendment allowing abortion in cases where the health and life of women is in great jeopardy. While suggest- ing that the introduction of abortion could be premature and had nothing to do with so- cialism, Bartolo did not mince his words in describing as "hys- terical" the films screened in schools which depict abortion as bloody and capricious. Yet like Leo Brincat, Bartolo also took a dig at the PN's friends in Europe such as Veil or the pro- choice Dutch and Swiss Chris- tian-democrats. Still, it was the experience of a woman from Valletta under the nom de plume "imġarrba" (the victim) which captures the spirit of the times – a society on the threshold of a long-gestat- ed modernity in which working women are still prisoners of a culture based on honour and shame. It is the story of a wom- an who had a workplace affair with a man she later found out was married. "I did not want to taint the honour of my family... neither did I want to break up the family of the man... that is why I had an abortion." And while referring to her abor- tion as a mistake, she prais- es Mintoff for saying that no woman should go to prison for such an act, and that crim- inalising women would further expose them to the culture of shame prevalent in Malta at the time. 43 years later, a radically changed country is still dis- cussing abortion, and Labour is still cautiously testing the waters. An editorial on the PN's organ In- Nazzjon Tagħna published in May 1980 went as far as saying... that "Maltese women love their children and surely would not butcher their children," and that "they will surely not behave worse than cats"