It is not the first time that Peter Murray (his comments on my article ‘Malta’s no to abortion’, August 4) criticised the Malta Unborn Child Movement for, as he alleges, caring only for unborn children and opposing abortion and then, as he put it, “disappears once these mostly unwanted, unloved and destined to a life in institutions children enter the world”.

He also wrote: “I have never come across any of these group members in any institutions nor child adoption agency’s helping out with such children nor do they offer any form of assistance, as it would seem that the limit of these groups’ involvement is to demand that these children be born, without accepting that this might be dangerous to the woman’s life carrying the unborn or that the child was conceived as a result of an act of rape or incest, as once they are born they all disappear – including the political parties – who are only concerned with how many votes this may potentially lose them if they support limited abortion.”

Murray should know that Aġenzija Appoġġ, a generic social work agency which also does adoption work, and Aġenzija Sapport, a social work agency that specialises in the care of disabled children, which form part of the government’s Foundation for Social Welfare Services, do all the good things for born children which he clamours for. The foundation is a member organisation of MUCM.

The vast majority of unborn children in Malta and Gozo are treasured while still in the womb and adored when born

The same is done by the Church’s children’s homes unit Ejjew Għandi and the Education Department’s Aġenzija Għożża and the Gozo Church’s Dar Ġużeppa Debono. All three, organisations within the MUCM, provide for all the needs of children in care and teenage and adult mothers, irrespective of whether “the child was conceived (and born) as a result of an act of rape or incest”.

Similarly, Gift of Life, another organisation within the MUCM, does a lot of very good work through its HOPE programme, which offers professional and material assistance to pregnant women contemplating abortion and others who had done an abortion.

The Social Assistance Secretariat of the Catholic Action movement, another social work agency within the MUCM, offers professional social work services and financial and material assistance to all kinds of people in need, mostly families, married or not, with very small children. It has been doing this for the last 53 years.

As for the three political parties, all member organisations of the MUCM, may I point out again that the declaration against abortion, and in favour of pregnant women in dire medical conditions, was made by Minister Helena Dalli not at a mass meeting of the Labour Party on the Granaries, in Floriana, in a bid to obtain votes, as Murray alleges. She made her declaration in the presence of representatives of many states gathered for a United Nationsm meeting in Geneva. Despite strong criticism by many members states, especially Nordic countries, she stood her ground and defended, on behalf of the Maltese people, the rights of unborn children, from conception, to be born, live and thrive. That was December 2013.

In February this year, Deborah Schembri, for the Labour Party, Paula Mifsud Bonnici, for the Nationalist Party, and Mario Mallia, for Alternattiva Demokratika, in their formal speeches on the occasion of Pro-Life Day, organised by the MUCM every year, made very categorical statements in favour of the right to quality life of unborn children from conception. This was done in the presence of President Marie-Louis Coleiro Preca, who patronised the event in all its stages.

No, as a pro-life movement we don’t disappear once, as Murray puts it, “these mostly unwanted, unloved and destined to a life in institutions children enter the world”. So many organisations within the MUCM care and are always there to help these children and their parents.

On the other hand, unborn children are not, as he alleges, always unwanted, unloved and destined to a life in care. The vast majority of unborn children in Malta and Gozo, 4,000 of them every year, are conceived by and are born to loving and caring parents, in marriage or outside of it. They are treasured while still in the womb and adored when born.

This goes to make Malta so very special in this regard.

Tony Mifsud is coordinator of the Malta Unborn Child Movement.