A group of law students, under the auspices of Għaqda Studenti tal-Liġi (GħSL), published a position paper entitled, ‘Abortion ‒ A Reproductive Right or a Moral Profligacy?’ Matthew Charles Zammit, the GħSL president, hails the praiseworthy ‘voluminous effort’ of the students concerned while complaining that discussion about abortion is so often “beset with half-truths, assumptions and unanswered queries”.
The students present well-researched food for thought. They look at comparative law and medical, psychological, religious and ethical views. Two interviews follow, with Lara Dimitrijevic, from pro-abortion NGOs, and David Zammit, wearing the hat of an anthropologist of law as well as eye-opening advisor.
Throughout, the paper repeatedly downplays pro-life arguments, giving them lower value. It acknowledges that the main argument against abortion is that this is taking the life of a human person. The paper describes two versions of it. One version argues that the embryo or foetus has the potential of becoming a human person but is not since it does not yet have “experiences and memories”.
But their ‘conclusion’ comes when they tell us that if abortion cuts short this potential, this equally applies to contraception since contraception too stops potential people from becoming people. However, contraception is “necessary in modern society”. This argument that embryos and foetuses should not be aborted is, thus, dismissed. (The observation that the individual starts at conception, and not before, is ignored.)
The argument that is, by contrast, not opposed is that a person is a person when that individual can survive independently of other people, their mother, in particular. It is admitted that this is, after all, a “practical” solution. But no argument is presented to begin to show that becoming independently viable and becoming a person happen together.
If my aunt is frail and dependent on my care she does not cease to be a person
In fact, we respect humans as people because we see that, as humans, we hold in us the capability to overrule the automatic mechanisms that rule our body and come from the body’s physics, biology and animal psychology. We can make free decisions.
Foetuses, but not ova or sperms, are already human individuals who in future, if not now, will show such personhood. This personhood is spiritual, showing clear evidence of being something more than matter ruled by its automatic mechanisms and other limitations.
On this point, if my aunt is frail and totally dependent on my care, she does not cease to be a person and I am still in duty bound to safeguard her life. If I am asleep or unconscious, I do not cease to be a person. Likewise, even the fact that an unborn baby does not express its personhood, by not talking or making decisions, does not prove that it is not already a person.
Faithful more to its assumptions than to unbiased argument, the paper recommends abortion becoming legal at any stage (even though it formerly accepted that the unborn who are viable are people).
It also calls for education about “sexual health”, including, then, abortion, to be compulsory in schools while being completely descriptive and devoid of any “moral or religious bias”. (Does that mean no mention of responsibility?)
It rightly recommends that people considering abortion should be offered skilful counselling and that this should be confidential, presumably – and rightly – even if they decide to go ahead and abort. They also rightly clamour for expert knowledge and scientific evidence to be assured in all policy and service.
But there is the half of the truth that they sweep under the carpet: the fact that we can at no point safely say that the unborn do not have personhood, already there and irreversible, which gives us the moral duty to protect their life at every stage. It is not because the law or the culture of this or that country says so but clear and undiscriminating moral reasoning about the evidence in front of us that should have the last word about rights and duties.
If medical treatments are not allowed by the authorities before it is certain that they do not harm human people, so should abortion at any stage not be legalised before we have made sure that it is not doing the ultimate harm to a human being.
In fulfilling our dire duty to help people facing challenging pregnancies, we should not throw away the – real not proverbial – baby with the bath water. Malta should be bold and pioneer ways in which we help them, understandingly, massively and robustly but without shutting out the legal protection of the right of all of us to our life.
Charles Pace, Senior visiting lecturer, Department of Social Policy & Social Work