A heartfelt plea

We would like to address this open letter primarily to President George Vella, Health Minister Chris Fearne and also to the doctors and health practitioners in parliament. This letter is primarily addressed to them as doctors first and foremost but also as role models for our young people and, indeed, for all of us. They know very well that what they say and how they act carries extra weight. This, at times, must be a burden, which they knowingly accepted.

Living up to their declared principles and beliefs is a responsibility nobody can usurp and is a strong message in itself.

During a career as consultant paediatric surgeon, Fearne must have saved countless lives of newborns who had the good fortune to be born and live in spite of complications. It is difficult to understand how he can now support an amendment to the law that allows the life of children yet unborn to be ended if it presents a risk not only to the mother’s life – which is already safeguarded – but to the mother’s “well-being”; to see him prefer the party line to the well-being of our society and generations of innocent voiceless children.

Many remember with great respect the sterling service rendered by Carmen Fearne, his mother, a good chunk of whose life was dedicated to helping school-aged mothers and their partners keep their babies with Għożża, often in face of initial opposition from within their own families and circle of friends. (Unit Għożża was the name given to what was previously known as The School-girl Mothers’ Unit of the Education Department).

The president too has worked tirelessly and set up a name for himself as a conscientious doctor who was always prepared to go to great lengths to do the very best for his patients, whether they were old or young, well to do or in strained circumstances. It was a relief to read that he would be willing to resign unless the amendment to the law is ‘sufficiently tweaked by MPs’.

Vella is not the only one who will have to live with the decisions but future generations of children and their parents too, in different ways.

We recently celebrated the feast of the Holy Innocents and we could not help linking this to the decisions to be taken in parliament in the coming weeks. Are we to repeat the story of innocent infants put to death by those in power whose primary duty is to protect and nurture life?

We sincerely hope that Vella, Fearne and all MPs, especially those working in the health sector, will find the courage and strength to respect their own values and take action. The majority of the Maltese will be behind them and they will earn the respect of our people – those who are against abortion (“through the back door” in the present scenario) – as well as those  who, though they may disagree with them, will respect them for their integrity and respect for our democracy.

Anne Pace and Jacqueline Grima – Ħamrun

No, no square

Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

I write with reference to the article ‘No, no square’ (January 3).

I would agree 100 per cent with regard to the “no, no square”. I would agree 100 per cent with the author’s view that a woman has complete right over her body: woman’s body, woman’s choice. But with respect, the rest of the article would seem to be a non sequitur.

Of course a woman has every right to suntan, pierce, tattoo, augment, botox and detox her body but the child in her womb, at whatever stage of development, is a separate being with a distinct DNA. No person has a right to terminate the life of another person. This would be premeditated, cold-blooded murder.

A crude analogy would be: the owner of a house has no right to kill any individual occupying his/her property, even in the case of squatters, in particular if the owner has not exercised due diligence and ensured the premises were properly secured.

Mary Shephard – Swieqi