Entrenchment issues

I am very grateful for the note of clarification by the Fr Peter Serracino Inglott published on Thursday, April 5, on the matter of entrenchement of abortion in our Constitution.

I would like to make two observations on what is contained in that note:

1. Fr Serracino Inglott thinks that so far no politically responsible person in Malta has shown any inclination to propose that our law should allow abortion, at least in certain circumstances. Unfortunately this is not so. I was struck by the glaring difference which occurred recently; no-one batted an eyelid when the entrenchment of the Ombudsman institute was proposed and is about to be approved, while when the same was proposed for prohibiting abortion, although everyone said that abortion was wrong, entrenching the same was opposed, on the strength of specious, spurious arguments.

I think that entrenchment is useful and now that a significant majority is in favour of the protection it is precisely now possible to have, at least, a two-thirds consensus among our legislators. I am afraid I do not understand the argument that there is no need to entrench because nobody challenges the present position. On the contrary, it is possible to entrench now because there is an almost unanimous agreement that abortion violates the fundamental right to life.

2. I agree that the proposed constitutional amendment should be formulated in such language as would determine precisely and concisely what is intended to protect. In my opinion the inclusion of the phrase "from conception to natural death", inserted after the word "life" in Article 33 (1) of the Constitution would be enough. The phrase would qualify what is meant by "life". This would leave the interpretation as to when conception (or hominisation) begins, in the hands of judges and scientists and this is all the judicial precision we can prudently require for an adequate protection of the right to life.