Three words, three questions

The concluding words of Mgr Joseph Galea Curmi for this year’s aggiornamento are really inspiring.

He invited us, priests, to be priests of discernment, priests close to the people and priests who instil hope in people’s lives. Do I discern? How can I be close to the people? And how can I instil hope in the people I come across? Can these three words become the three ongoing evaluation questions of my life, as a priest?

Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap – Marsa

COVID vaccine

Photo: Shutterstock.com

I wish to advise readers that, contrary to a published article (June 21), it is possible to obtain a vaccination for COVID-19.

I am an expatriate with an interim residency document and, although it is not possible to use the 145 helpline in the first instance, you can go directly to a health clinic and obtain the necessary administrative support.

Which is as follows: on inspection and verification of your interim residency permit you can be issued with a hospital number (F number). This is entered into the health system and you can then book a vaccination either via 145 or in person at the relevant clinic.

I undertook the above at Mosta health clinic where the staff was most helpful and efficient.

Rodger Hartill – Wardija

PA howlers

Taxpayers are paying for the PA howlers. This means that none of the members on the PA board has to carry any personal accountability.

Is this fair and just?

Carmel Sciberras – Naxxar

Camouflaging the real issue

Whenever arguments on abortion crop up, the two opposing groups – the ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ – focus on their own agenda. The ‘pro-choice’ emphasise the right of a woman to make her own choice, whereas the ‘pro-life’ emphasise the fact that, when performing an abortion, a human life is being murdered.

When commenting on the book titled, Moral disengagement – How people do harm and live with themselves, by Albert Bandura, Thomas D. Cook et al state that we are reminded that “morality is less about the ends we seek to achieve and more about the means we use”.

When MP Marlene Farrugia commented about the bill she submitted in parliament proposing the decriminalisation of abortion, she remarked: “We must come together so that women can truly remove the stigma and prejudice that women face when they make their own choices.”

Here, clearly, Farrugia is emphasising the fact that nothing – not even the killing of an unborn child – should come in the way when women make their own choices.  So, by emphasising a ‘noble’ end – the right to make one’s own choice – Farrugia is camouflaging the means being used – abortion.

Bandura explains how “social and moral justifications sanctify harmful practices by investing them with honourable purposes. Righteous and worthy ends are used to justify harmful means”.

Whenever choices are made, one has to consider not only one’s individual interests but the greater good (harm) involved.  To focus on the woman’s right  of freedom of choice without considering the consequences involved on other individuals, in this case, the unborn child, is not only ignoring the greater picture but the one mainly affected by such a choice.

We are all for empowering women to make the right choices.  We wouldn’t want women to suffer the consequences of a forced pregnancy and that is why we advocate full support. But, in such a complex situation, where the life of an individual is involved, society needs to look at facts objectively without trying to emphasise one good to the detriment of the other.

A spokesperson for Right To Life UK, commenting on the fact that 210,860 lives were lost to abortion in England and Wales in 2020, affirmed: “Every one of these abortions represents a failure of our society to protect the lives of babies in the womb and a failure to offer full support to women with unplanned pregnancies.”

By using phrases like ‘the right to make one’s own choice’, ‘safeguarding one’s own health’, ‘the threat of putting women in prison’ one is  appealing to what Bandura calls ‘verbal camouflage’. Bandura explains how “verbal camouflage disguises all types of activities that raise moral concern”.

Only by calling a spade a spade and treating abortion as what it is, the killing of an unborn child, can we help the mother make the right choice.

Ray Azzopardi – Xemxija

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