The EU and abortion

It is not true that Malta has to legalise abortion on joining the European Union. The European Parliament resolution calling for the legalisation of abortion has no legal standing. Abortion has not featured in the membership negotiations.

Of all the harsh statements that have been traded in the EU membership debate, the most defamatory is surely the one made some time ago to the effect that the Prime Minister was so "obsessed" with membership that if the legalisation of abortion were to be made a condition for membership, he would accept it.

Much as we in the European Movement hate participating in the extremely partisan exchanges that are the staple of Maltese politics, we wish to appeal once again for stronger responsibility to be exercised in the use of words.

More positively we have noted that Malta's political leaders have found consensus in their total opposition to the legalisation of abortion. The European Movement (Malta) rarely takes a stand on moral issues, but on this particular one we are strongly in agreement with them.

In our opinion, abortion can be introduced in Malta only if a substantive majority in this country becomes convinced that it must be legalised. We also think that staying out of the EU will not free Malta from the 'external' pressures to legalise it.

In many of the other European and international organisations to which Malta already belongs as a full member, the pressure to declare abortion a 'human' or a woman's right is already very strong.

Furthermore, in Europe and elsewhere the decision to legalise abortion had nothing to do with EU membership. Many member states legalised it before joining the EU.

Abortion was legalised in Central and Eastern Europe when these countries were under Communist rule and ideologically opposed to what the EU stood for.

At the time, some of those who have been most vocal locally in conflating abortion and EU membership used to describe Communist Europe in the most positive manner. Abortion did not raise moral qualms then.

So what ought we to do? Should we urge Malta to leave all European and world organisations and become the world's foremost hermit just in case abortion is declared a human right in any one of them?

In an earlier position on this issue the European Movement proposed that the strongest defence against abortion is education. The people who stand for a woman's right to abort inadvertently deny the unborn child's most basic right to life.

The need to educate more about abortion becomes clearer when one considers that it is frequently rumoured that many young women travel overseas to have one.

Of course it is easy to condemn these anonymous persons but we do not. It is after all a sign of the human predicament and a reason why more must be done to educate. That is in our opinion is the strongest defence against abortion and not some hasty retreat into isolationism.

Maltese political leaders and our Catholic bishops are not surprised by the extent of this practice. We are sure that although they have not gone public about it they are aware of what is going on.

The stark reality is that although it has not been legalised, abortion is available to Maltese women. Joining or staying out of the EU will change nothing of this. It will not stop Maltese women from aborting.

In view of all these arguments, it appears that the recent exchanges on abortion and EU membership have to a large extent been quite hypocritical when perhaps we ought to have been more hyper-critical of the situation on the ground and what has or is being done to remedy it - if indeed it is abortion which really worries us.

Abortion has been used by the opponents of EU membership to frighten voters. We think this is a cheap way of carrying out an informed debate on membership and even more so in tackling an important moral issue such as abortion.

The executive committee of the European Movement has discussed the issue and has written to the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika urging them to ban abortion by an appropriate Constitutional amendment.

We believe that such a constitutional amendment will not lessen Malta's eligibility for EU membership and the doubts that have been sown in recent weeks will be removed. Such an amendment will surely quash the concerns of those who are genuinely worried about the introduction of abortion in Malta.