I.M. Beck - quote unquote

I know a Geordie accent isn't one that summons to mind the noble game of rugby (not the Union version, that is) but I couldn't be fagged to think of another accent that I could try to reproduce and, anyway, the point isn't to think up smart headlines but to extend a hearty pat on the back in the general direction of the Malta Rugby team, who pulled off one heck of a good show last Saturday to beat Denmark by the required 10 points in literally the last few seconds of the match, thereby qualifying themselves to have a bash at the even bigger boys.

It was a superb afternoon and the crowd was fantastic, as were the boys themselves.

Congratulations to all concerned.

But what?

The debate has started. The debate as to why in the name of all that's good and true the government thought this would be a good time to start talking about abortion, that is. There was no real debate going on before my old, and I hope good, friend Tonio Borg dreamt up the idea that it was about time the Constitution, in the interpretation of which he is something of an expert, got itself a bit of a re-do by grafting in a bit about how the passages in the Criminal Code relating to the criminalisation of abortion and the procuring thereof should be entrenched.

Incidentally, when I say "the debate has started" I don't include as participants in the process of civilised debate the Malta Abortion Rights Support Group, a previously non-existent body that thought it would be conducive to the civilised process of debate to threaten an international boycott if the government goes ahead. This arrogance in its own is almost enough to make me say the government should forge ahead.

But to get back to civilised debate, for the uninitiated, a law being entrenched means it can only be changed by two-thirds of the Hon. Members agreeing it would be a good thing to have it changed. Precisely across whose mind it had, erm, crossed that even a simple majority of said Hons. would ever have thought it would be a good thing to change the Code is not exactly clear to me.

What is also unclear to me is why the proposed change to the Constitution is being seen as a blow struck in the name of the unborn child. The unborn child remains as protected (more precisely, unprotected: What was it, three prosecutions in 10 years or some equally ludicrous figure? Some protection) with the Criminal Code entrenched in the Constitution as with it un-entrenched, so let's strip out the emotion and look at this a bit less Talebanistically, shall we?

I have never made it a secret that I am not pro-abortion - or even pro-choice, since the choice that one is pro when one is pro-choice is that of the woman and not of the unborn child, which is no choice at all. I am, not to put too fine a point on it, anti-abortion.

However, while being anti-abortion, except when the life of the mother is at stake, when the boundaries between right and wrong fade into a nightmare of grey, I am also pretty uncomfortable with the idea that a woman who has undergone the trauma of deciding about and going through with an abortion should be judged guilty of a crime.

Given that the criminalisation of abortion hardly constitutes much of a protection, and, since in the rare occasions that the criminal law is invoked, most of what will happen is an increased dose of human tragedy, shouldn't we think outside the box and really try to protect the unborn child instead of kicking up a fuss about what is, effectively, nothing.

The law as it stands, probably because we're cursed with a written Constitution, doesn't allow judges to be creative with concepts such as wards of court and actions in the interest of society at large. Would it have been beyond us to have created a legal system whereby the rights of the unborn child can be protected, by the intervention, perhaps, of disinterested, but concerned, third parties? Instead of an archaic and judgmental system that fails to recognise human needs?

Kids' stuff

The ideal disinterested but concerned third party in the scenario I sketched above would be the Commissioner for Children.

The catch here is that instead of concentrating on her remit, the current incumbent seems to have gone out of her way to annoy everyone with her stand on, of all things, IVF. The credibility of the office has taken something of a knock because of a stand that has bemused everyone I've spoken to, bar none.

A medical gentleman, asked to explain what the dear lady meant when she mumbled something about IVF being OK if a guarantee of proper issue was available, started spluttering incoherently, as did a number of other people who were asked to comment whether the position that had been taken was fair to people who were trying to start a family.

Leaving aside the moderately vexed question to where the Commissioner for Children gets off commenting about IVF in the first place, why did she get all hot under the collar, anyway? The hard-line stance she took at the beginning of the pretty silly debate was made not a heck of a lot less rigid when she started talking about the guarantee to which I made passing reference in the previous paragraph and the whole thing prompted Minister Dolores Cristina, not usually one to dive into controversy (she's more sensible than that), to make it pretty darn clear that Mrs Camilleri was talking entirely off her own bat and not expounding the government's position.

At all.

And let's hope it stays that way, forsooth. Scientific advancement has never exactly been speeded on its merry way by the involvement of the Proponents of Dogma and we really don't need fundamentalism - we have enough of that in party politics.

Eh non

To the delight of Dr KMB and his motley crew, the French electorate, bless their baguettes and berets, have given the thumbs down to Brussels and the EU Constitution, so shiny new on Saturday, so destined for the drawing board today.

Of course, Dr KMB and said motley bunch will not be going about telling people all this means precisely nowt, and that nothing will really change. Brussels still controls our destiny and, having had that destiny controlled by people like Dr KMB and his illustrious predecessor for so long, I am not all that sorry that this is the case.

The amusing thing about it all is that the French, by all accounts, were saying non, non and non more because they wanted their government to sit up and take notice than because they didn't really want the new Constitution.

Fly me home, Jeeves

Is the story going the rounds that someone actually called up the PM at the unearthly hour of one fifteen am to demand that he despatches an Air Malta plane to Kiev or wherever it was that the EuroKitsch Contest had been held to pick up Chiara true?

If it is, has the person concerned been taken aside and politely told to get a life? Just prior to being told that he or she will never again be connected with anything that even remotely gives her or him official status, that is. Even if that official status is as a third substitute fourth reserve to the deputy fifth member of the committee for assessment of how to peel onions.

Frankly, the people who have been going around spreading sour grapes and insulting the people of Romania and sundry other less-prone-to-vote-for-Malta should also be told the same thing, as should the person who designed Chiara's dress.

This is not to say that the lady doesn't have a superb voice and is a credit to us all; it is just to say, for the millionth time, that the Eurovision Song Contest does not matter.

Which part of that statement don't some people understand?

Bondì was wrong

In a treatise published last Sunday in The Malta Independent on Sunday, Mr Lou Bondì made some comments on Mr Dom Mintoff, the "illustrious predecessor" to Dr KMB to whom I was referring in an earlier paragraph, with my tongue very, very firmly in my cheek.

Mr Bondì was wrong.

Mr Mintoff's legacy in government includes very little that can be described as positive, as Mr Bondì was quite diligent in pointing out, but the piece went a bit off track when reference was made to the social services that, according to the writer, Mr Mintoff was instrumental in introducing into the country.

Those reforms, anyone with even the slightest grasp of European economic history, were about to happen anyway and it is only an accident of happenstance that led to Mr Mintoff being in government at the time. In fact, many of the social services the old guy introduced were badly designed and worse executed, as the current situation proves beyond reasonable doubt.

In fact, about the only positive thing I can think of to say about Mr Mintoff was that he got us into the European Union by bringing about the downfall of Doctor Alfred Sant. If you don't agree with me, have a read of Mr Mintoff's latest public uttering, the one by means of which he's trying to get even more money out of us.

And while on the subject of public money, could some representative enlighten me as to why people who host foreign students (for financial consideration) think they are immune from the effects of the dreaded income tax?

And, while we're about it, could someone ask Parl. Sec. Tonio Fenech to enlighten me as to where he got the idea that an income of Lm3,000 is tax-exempt? Assuming that host families are, if you follow me, families, is he asking anyone to believe that the total income these families get is less than Lm3,000 and therefore non-taxable?

What?

bocca@waldonet.net.mt