And then it happened. Marlene Farrugia tabled the draft legislation to decriminalise abortion and the Maltese psyche was triggered.
Triggered is a big word denoting an inevitable reaction… a lack of freedom to take a step back and reflect, let alone open dialogue and debate. But are we triggered by opposing views on the ‘morality’ of abortion? We understand that certain human acts, such as torture, rape, abuse and murder, cannot be justified as the very terms capture the horror of harm intentionally inflicted upon another.
Intentional harm is evil, not just because of the violence unleashed, but in undermining our efforts to live peaceably in society. This is why the most horrific acts are criminalised, and abortion – the intentional killing of an innocent – can be seen in this light. Even if we might not agree on the precise moment when a pregnancy becomes a matter for considering the ‘right-to-life’of another ‘person’, few would argue that the life of the unborn is, in principle, worthless.
Still, we hear stories of mothers, fathers and other adults who harm children: they abandon them, abuse them physically, emotionally and sexually, traffic them. Pope Francis recently called these acts “psychological murder” – as grave as intentional killing. But where is the outrage? Clearly, it is not mere violence against children that triggers us.
There is another tragic side to abortion: the lament of women used, abandoned, unheard and unseen during their pregnancies and after. ‘Motherhood’ is never exactly ‘chosen’, but always received – and sometimes imposed. The ‘fruit of our womb’ a miracle of life that always opens to the possibility of (our) death, is through the act of another: whether willed or not; whether of love, lust, violence or in-between.
The process to motherhood can be graced… but it is never the idyllic picture we paint on Mother’s Day. The glorification of motherhood, of expecting nothing short of heroism from women as mothers, is illusory at best, objectifying at worst. When the mother is a woman-like-us – not exactly a hero, but afraid, confused, struggling, under extreme duress – why is it so easy to condemn her for feeling incapable to carry a child to term?
In an ideal world, the moment the pregnancy test comes positive, a woman is not only madly in love with her child, but desires nothing more than to give them her life. But does our society idolise ‘maternity’ so much that it ignores the very real struggles of many other flesh-and-blood women? And if we idolise motherhood, but seem immune to the actual suffering of children and women, what exactly do we viscerally react to when we hear the word ‘abortion’?
Is it perhaps the in-between: touching the ‘sacred womb’ that in centuries of patriarchy, only the husband had a claim to? Is our visceral reaction also an echo of untold systemic violence; of past assumptions about unequal relations between men and women that we might still not have healed from?
To acknowledge the multiple truths underlying this tragedy (re)enacted many times, is the beginning of giving flesh to the noblest of desires: to defend all life and safeguard the dignity of all born and unborn. But until we do, ‘pro-life’ remains a motto… a dream still merely longing to become reality.
Nadia Delicata, Moral theologian at the University’s Faculty of Theology