Security of the person
“X’aħna sbieħ min jaf jarana” is the untranslatable Maltese expression that first comes to mind when reading pro-life arguments against the proposed decriminalisation of abortion.
Whether it is the president, physician and guardian of the constitution, steadfast in upholding an unconstitutional law depriving women of their fundamental right to the security of their person, or the prime minister, a lawyer, sitting on the fence of public opinion, instead of providing leadership, or the bright lights at Life Network Foundation, dentists lecturing medical doctors on basic biology, it is all comical were it not so cruel to Maltese women.
As if that weren’t enough to make the traditional kawlata, along comes Tonio Borg with his latest missive (May 21) wherein he attacks Marlene Farrugia for submitting a private member’s bill to protect women from imprisonment by striking off Malta’s draconian anti-abortion law, the only such law in the EU.
Borg relies on attacking Farrugia’s past beliefs to justify upholding the existing law, a textbook logical fallacy.
Not satisfied with personal attacks on Farrugia for having the courage to change her position, he then goes on to pontificate his fossilised thinking, quoting Ronald Reagan to support his own misconceptions. Quote Reagan, an actor, known to rely on an astrologist for advice?
Perhaps Borg might want to consider what a highly respected legal scholar/constitutional law expert had to say on the subject:
“Every woman has a constitutional right to make her own reproductive choices.” That was former US president Barack Obama.
Or, the justices of the Supreme Court of Canada: “Forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a foetus to term, unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations, is a profound interference with a woman’s body and, thus, a violation of her security of the person.”
“Security of the person.” Isn’t that clause also contained in article 32(a) of our constitution? So, how does the former European commissioner contend that “the bill is also in direct conflict not only with the constitution of Malta as interpreted by the Maltese courts but also the embryo protection act, unanimously approved by parliament in 2012, which makes it a crime to destroy an embryo”?
“As interpreted by the Maltese courts”? Borg does not refer to any specific case, as, say, Roe vs Wade.
Is it possible that it all happened in his imagination?
As for the law on the protection of the embryo, is Borg suggesting that a woman’s body is a medical laboratory and her uterus a Petri dish?
C. John Zammit – St Catherine’s, Ontario
200 years since Napoleon’s death
I read Joseph Grima’s feature probing into the fate of alleged treasures that were seized from Malta by the French in 1798 (May 25), confirming most of my recent contributions on the subject to The Sunday Times of Malta (May 2 and 23).
Grima asserts that the total value of objects was 489,659 scudi, a figure reached by Clément de La Jonquière in 1899 quoting mint director Joachim Lebrun. This is equivalent to circa €49,000.
When melting such silver into coins, the French were, in fact, continuing on what the Knights themselves, at least six years earlier, were forced to do with the navy and hospital silverware.
The French acquired this argenterie via legal and notarial contracts, including one with the Curia for exclusive rights over the use of St John’s. There were some sporadic pickings by unruly soldiers from parochial churches.
Unfortunately, thefts from churches remain a thief’s kleptomaniac attraction: in 2016 official figures showed that there were 273 thefts from Malta’s churches in the previous 10 years. There were no details as to the nationality of the thieves.
On the morrow of his arrival in Malta in 1798, General Bonaparte ordered the instant execution of army officer Favier from Valence for having, with three other soldiers, attempted to steal silver from the chapel of St Catherine’s Convent in Valletta.
Interested readers may like to know that, to mark the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s death, Malta University Press has just published the third (souvenir) edition of my doctoral thesis France in the Maltese Collective Memory (picture) with an insert on Napoleon.
DeeMedia.tv will be producing a mini-series on TVM starting on June 6 called Malta f’Mixjet Bonaparti that I have researched and will be conducting with an extraordinary resident guest.
Charles Xuereb – Sliema
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