PL MEP and former Prime Minister Alfred San has abstained on a vote to remove a paragraph relating to abortion in an EU Parliamentary resolution.

MEPs held a vote on a resolution for Paraguay; the paragraph in question read… “find it regrettable that women’s and girls’ bodies, specifically with respect to their sexual health and reproductive rights, still remain an ideological battleground, and calls on Paraguay to recognise the inalienable rights of women and girls to bodily integrity and autonomous decision-making as regards, inter alia, the right to access voluntary family planning and safe and legal abortion; believes that the general prohibition on therapeutic abortion and abortion of pregnancies resulting from rape and incest, and the refusal to provide free health cover in cases of rape, amounts to torture”.

PN MEPs voted to remove this clause, however Dr Sant abstained.

Dr Sant says he is “getting tired of the hypocrisy (on the part of the media and others) that surrounds the whole question of votes that arise in the European Parliament to somehow involve issues related to abortion”.

“The vote referred to, related to a case in Paraguay involving a 10- year-old girl who had been raped by a member of her family and had become pregnant. I am not one those who consider this as a clear cut matter.

“The decision not to abort was taken despite the fact that abortion would have saved the life of this innocent child; making her undergo the full pregnancy through to childbirth would probably, if she survives, blight her physical and psychological development with scant chance of saving the offspring in a viable manner.

“All male and female adults I consulted in Malta about this clearly told me they would have decided in favour of abortion if it concerned a member of their family. (I am not sure whether they knew that according to St Thomas of Aquinas, in Catholic terms, abortion is a venial sin if carried out within three to four months from inception of pregnancy.) But they insisted they would not wish to be quoted publicly about their stand,” he said.

He explained that he shares their opinions and respects their wish to remain anonymous just as he respects the anti-abortion stands of the vast majority of people who voted for him in the European Parliament elections last year. “So I abstained on the vote at issue.”  

A recent shocking case in Paraguay has captured international attention and outcry, a case involving a 10-year-old girl who was raped and impregnated by her stepfather.

The girl is being denied abortion; however four United Nations Human Rights experts said the Paraguayan authorities’ decision is a grave violation of the rights to health, life and physical and mental integrity and would jeopardize her social and economic opportunities.

According to The Guardian, Lida Sosa, director of healthcare programmes at the ministry of public health and wellness, said: “Right now, there is no reason to interrupt the pregnancy. In fact, given the stage of the pregnancy, it’s even more dangerous for the girl to undergo a procedure [to abort] without a well-considered medical, obstetrical evaluation.”

Lilian Soto, a feminist activist at the Centro de Documentación y Estudios (Centre of Documentation and Studies) told The Guardian: “When you consider the threat to life and the anatomical and psychological risks, the first step that should be taken in pregnancies of girls under the age of 13 should be an abortion. This is what the authorities fail to understand,” Ms Soto said. “That girl is now alone … the Paraguayan state has a clear responsibility for that.”

PN MEP David Casa highlighted that “abortion is a redline for the PN, so wherever it is, if in Europe or South America, the PN’s position is a vote against”.

Mr Casa said “incest and rape are horrible; however, can we say that we will kill the child? I believe we should always vote against the possibility of a country dictating who should live or die. No one has the power to decide if one should live or die. Yes, we should punish those criminals but the innocent child too? Until someone brings forward concrete evidence that there is no living being in the womb, we cannot take the risk. It’s very dangerous”.