Waterfront terminal access ‘hazards’

While there is no doubt that Malta has the most beautiful harbour and some of the best port facilities in Europe if not the world, the same cannot be said for the cruise passenger exit leading to the taxi and pick-up area. This has a significant incline to negotiate, together with many grates that cannot be avoided and snag the wheels of suitcases.  

I would dare anyone from the relevant authorities to carry two pieces of luggage – on wheels or not – up that slope without being exhausted on reaching the top.

The cruise passenger exit has a significant incline to negotiate and many grates.

Once on the slope, you cannot stop as wheeled cases will start to roll back. As we are aware, most of the passengers on these liners are senior citizens. Snagging wheels have led to people falling, bringing an end to one’s holiday. 

Having visited 10 ports in 14 days, there was no other port which had such an awkward exit.   

Can the authorities, please, look into this issue which leaves the older generation panting for breath?

Charles Micallef – Qawra

The cruise passenger exit has a significant incline to negotiate and many grates.

Pressing need to update the law

I agree with John Pace who, in his letter September 6, said “one needs a legal expert to enlighten the public as to whether or not these doctors… are actually establishing their pro-abortion agenda by openly defying Maltese law”. Such an analysis is needed not because it will lead to any change in how we pro-choice doctors operate but because it will shed light on how unsafe and unfit for purpose our abortion laws are.

I suspect our political class has become too comfortable turning a blind eye to the hundreds of women who have an abortion outside of the legal parameters each year and hoping the courts would continue to refrain from inflicting punishment if an abortion case ends up in front of them.

They know the current laws fall foul of established human rights and healthcare standards; they know women’s health and lives are at risk when they cannot access abortion legally but they continue to be populist and refrain from doing the right thing.

In the unlikely event a doctor is ever prosecuted for “aiding and abetting” an abortion, it would in essence be a prosecution for “aiding and abetting” what authoritative medical authorities, including the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), consider to be essential healthcare for women. It would not be good for the country’s standing and would certainly make the need to update our laws more pressing.

Those who wish to see pro-choice activists and doctors punished are those who want us to go back to the days when women who have abortions are terrified, have nobody to speak to and have to suffer in silence if they experience a complication. Most people would agree that this would be cruel and unjust and we will not allow it to happen. 

Christopher Barbara obo Doctors for Choice – Naxxar