The sound of silence

There are moments that define a nation. The assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia was one of them.

Caruana Galizia was murdered because there are people who fear the truth more than they fear justice. Indeed, her assassination was not merely an attack on a journalist. It was an attack on the very idea that truth matters.

We promised ourselves that day: never again. Never again would we allow narratives to triumph over facts. Never again would we stop asking the important questions.

This week, Malta was tested again.

Not by a bomb. But by a judgment.

For four years, Andrea Prudente’s story travelled the world. We were told that Malta’s abortion laws had almost killed a woman. That story became the emotional engine behind calls to liberalise abortion. Politicians cited it. Activists marched with it. International media repeated it. Many accepted it as the unquestionable truth.

Finally, the court examined the evidence. Madam Justice Miriam Hayman rejected the constitutional challenge. More strikingly, she concluded:

“A priori, the court has no issue with declaring that this woman was used by so-called pro-choice individuals... She played ball to their beliefs.”

The judgment goes further:

“Through Google and through the information she was receiving, the poor mother was subjected to fear and strong emotional pressure that either the baby is removed from her or she dies.”

You might want to read those words again. These were not uttered from a pro-life activist. Nor from a politician. They were uttered from the judge.

Where are the headlines now? Where are the international front pages? Where are those who condemned Malta’s medical court systems?

Or are facts only newsworthy when they fit the narrative?

This question should trouble every Maltese citizen; whatever one’s position on abortion. Because if a nation can be persuaded by a story before it patiently examines the evidence, what else can it be persuaded to believe?

There is to this, however, an even deeper tragedy.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of the abortion movement has not been changing laws. Perhaps it has been changing language.

Are facts only newsworthy when they fit the narrative?- Mariana Debono

Not “baby” but “tissue”.

Not “ending a human life” but “healthcare”.

Not “mother and child” but “choice”.

Words matter. They shape how we see reality. And when language hides reality instead of revealing it, conscience slowly falls asleep.

Every woman facing a heartbreaking or a difficult pregnancy deserves the finest medical care, unwavering support and genuine compassion. That should never be in doubt. But compassion loses its meaning when it asks us to solve one human tragedy by deliberately ending another human life.

This judgment is therefore about more than one woman. It is about the kind of country we are becoming. Law is never morally neutral. Every law teaches. Every law declares which lives are worthy of protection. And the very purpose of human rights is to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

If human rights depend on strength, independence, size or wantedness, then they are no longer human rights at all. They become privileges bestowed by the powerful.

Caruana Galizia paid the ultimate price because others feared what the truth might reveal.

This week, truth emerged not from an explosion but from a courtroom.

The question is not whether one supports or opposes abortion.

The question is whether Malta still has the courage to let truth shape its conscience rather than allowing its conscience to be shaped by convenient narratives.

Because the day a nation begins to prefer comforting fiction to uncomfortable truth is the day it starts losing more than an argument. It starts losing its very soul.

As the Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn warned, “one word of truth shall outweigh the whole world”.

This week, one judgment reminded us that truth still has weight.

The question now is: Will Malta defend it?

Mariana Debono is a philosophy PhD candidate, poet and writer.