Still waiting for action

There is a yellow notice stuck to a window of a car parked at the end of Alofjo Wignacourt Street, in Buġibba. In a threatening note as befits the commissioner of police, the owner of the car was last month warned that “if this vehicle is not removed from this place within eight days from the date of this notice, this vehicle shall be removed by the commissioner of police at the expense of the owner”.

The notice has been affixed to the red car abandoned in Bugibba.

In the previous paragraph of this notice, it again warns that “In virtue of section 8A, of legal notice 94 of 1977 as amended by  legal notice 123 of 2001 (traffic regulations regarding clamping and removal of encumbering objects), this vehicle is being considered as derelict vehicle”.

The said ‘derelict vehicle’ is still encumbering the place… well past the eight days’ grace given by the commissioner.

And will someone, please, inform the police commissioner to stop butchering the Maltese language as evidence on the notice? I lost count of the spelling mistakes. A 12-year-old schoolboy can spell better than this!

Joseph Cachia – St Paul’s Bay

Unborn humans

In his letter of February 13, Kenneth Cassar claims I missed the point of his letter of January 16. How could I? His point was simple. He claimed that if I (or he) was killed when still an embryo or a foetus of less than 24 weeks, I (or he) would not have minded because neither of us was there then: we did not exist.

He claims we do not exist when we are not conscious, we cannot be conscious if we do not have a brain and nobody has a brain before the 24th week of pregnancy. So, such unborn have no right for a life.

Yes, I got the point – but I disagree.

First, if you kill me as an embryo you are killing me because DNA shows the embryo and I are the same organism, the same living being. Second, if whoever is unconscious has no right to life, we can kill anybody when asleep or anaesthetised. No, it is not the state of consciousness that gives us the worth and dignity but our capability to be conscious at a rational and spiritual level.

This rational consciousness does not grow on trees but it does grow on human embryos and foetuses, if they are not destroyed.

Human rights are not the privileges folder of paying members of a self-serving club whose main perk is its being exclusive. These are privileges we share with all those who have the same capabilities. It is just normal nature for embryos to have the capability of rational consciousness, a capability that is already there, making them different from trees and cats, only taking time to be manifest.

How can the narrowed, modern mind apply fair thinking to such a human reality?

Like science philosopher Popper, I acknowledge the evidence that the human mind operates with a certain autonomy from the body. As we make sense of the world and make our decisions, our spiritual mind not only interacts with our body but it often also overrides simple bodily inclinations, in a mind-over-body manner.

And, like Fenwick, I acknowledge the evidence that human consciousness and perception can happen also independently of our bodily organs – such as when people see what is away from their eyes in near-death and other experiences.

How can you claim you know that there is no humanity in the early unborn and that there is no spiritual component that is not already operating with its own autonomy, not led by the body in its action but contributing its unique participation in the fulfilment of the unborn human to her or his full humanity?

One correspondent wrote recently that children do not understand death before age four. Can they, then, be killed because they do not understand death?              

Charles Pace – Msida