Hoorah! Hooray! Finally, the government has seen the light, and is moving to have our national anti-abortion laws enshrined in the Constitution. Hallelujah, and God Bless the Republic of Malta!

For naturally, this is a policy with which everyone (but everyone) simply has to agree. After all: who in his right mind can possibly dare to argue against a proposal which is “in favour of life”... if not someone who is, by definition, “in favour of death”? And who can be heartless enough to oppose a move with such a lofty and noble aim: to protect that weakest of weak creatures, the unborn child?

***

Never mind, then, that there is a certain anomaly behind the whole proposal. Never mind that we are living in a country where an estimated 86 per cent is firmly pro-life, and an estimated 96 per cent believe that life begins at conception. Never mind, too, that the “national consensus” which Justice Minister Tonio Borg suddenly craves so passionately has actually existed for years. For you see, the crux of the matter is not whether we should all agree to this proposal or not... but how to do this thing to which we have all pre-emptively agreed.

***

What’s that you say? A referendum? Nah, too democratic. Besides, referendums, like elections, also offer a degree of voter confidentiality. And because we are talking abortion here, the point isn’t merely to engineer an artificial victory... but also to identify and force into the open all those who are pro-choice, so that, in true Crucible fashion, we can persecute them at our leisure later.

I know! Why didn’t I think of it before? We’ll send them a letter: a cordial invitation, written in friendly, unthreatening language, sent out to all of civil society (and I mean all of civil society – newspapers, unions, band clubs, sports associations, NGOs, hairdressers, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, the works) – requesting that their approval of the initiative must reach the Ministry by a set deadline: for argument’s sake, the end of this month.

Ingenious, I know. This way, all those who are in favour will rush to comply out of a genuine belief in the issue. And the tiny minority which might be against? Well, how can they dare not reply to the summons, when their silence might conceivably be construed as a “pro-abortion” stand... this in a country which views its abortionists much like 17th century Salem viewed its witches? And even if a noticeable percentage does desist from replying... wouldn’t that make poor Tonio look like an instant martyr? You know, the man who tried to do something, but was stopped in his tracks by the nasty, nasty liberals?

No, whichever way you look at it, it’s a win-win situation for Tonio Borg. Like Saddam Hussein before him, he has engineered for himself an almost guaranteed 100 per cent approval rating. Nice going!

***

Almost guaranteed, please note. You see, not everyone has been entirely taken in. For one thing, there are the secularists. People who do not necessarily share our government’s belief that Malta is actually a satellite of the Holy See. People who are themselves also pro-life, but who are not fanatics; who oppose the idea of abortion ever being made legal in Malta, but who have seen through the political opportunism at work in this initiative, and who are quite frankly revolted by the unmistakable smell of rank hypocrisy throughout.

For, despite a certain e-mail campaign to the contrary, not to mention the general threat implied in the Minister’s letter this week, it is perfectly possible to be anti-abortion, and yet disagree with this constitutional amendment. Such misguided people exist even in this country – and I know this for a fact, because I am one of them myself. The only trouble is, you’ll rarely see their faces or hear their opinions, for at the moment they are all too busy boarding themselves in their homes, and fervently praying that the current wave of religious extremism that seems to have gripped our government will die down as quickly as possible.

***

Their arguments? Many and various, but let’s take the most logical. If we’re going to enshrine the abortion clause in our Constitution because it deals with “protecting life”, and because abortion is widely acknowledged as “murder”... then by the same reasoning, shouldn’t we also stick the entire “murder” clause there, too? After all, wouldn’t that also be protecting life? All life, and not just the unborn child’s? And while we’re at it, there are other life-threatening crimes some people might like to use this precedent to hurl into our Constitution. For instance, child abuse. Euthanasia. Human trafficking. Drugs.

The way we are going, these infidels argue, we may as well just transfer to the Constitution the entire Criminal Code, lock stock and two smokin’ barrels.

And just imagine the government’s reaction, if these cheeky upstarts then do what its own “national proposal” seems to be doing... and argue that whoever disagrees with this, is automatically suggesting that “all crime should be legalised”?

***

But of course, none of this is really relevant. For at the end of the day, the forces at work behind this initiative have nothing to do with unborn babies, but much to do with the Nationalist Party... which, in the absence of the EU to use as a political weapon, is desperately casting about to find a new cause celebre with which to turn an otherwise doomed political tide. And in a country where the thick smell of incense and fireworks permanently pervades the air, what better strategy to pin their hopes of electoral victory, than on a George Bush-style Radical Christian Right campaign?

***

And so, we are about to be plunged into yet another potentially explosive political confrontation, brought to you courtesy of Tonio Borg, MP. And the lines for the battlefield have already been drawn. This week, The Times carried its online poll asking whether its readers agree with the constitutional amendment. The result was something like 55.7 per cent in favour, 44.3 per cent against... eliciting an immediate wave of e-mail hysteria to the effect that “44.3 per cent are pro-abortion.”

And yet, it means nothing of the kind. All it means is that 44.3 per cent don’t want this country to become a little Christian version of the Taliban in the Mediterranean. Quite frankly, I’m more worried about the 55.7 per cent who do.

But there you have it: the community has once again been polarised into two extremes. I mean honestly, Dr Borg. Thanks a lot for introducing yet another divisive issue, when we’d only just gotten over the last one.

***

But then, you might be asking, what’s the official reason for all this controversy? What did our Prime Minister say at Castille last week, when he was asked by incredulous journalists the following, crucial question: why introduce a wave of religious mass-hysteria, when there isn’t even a blinking pro-abortion lobby on the entire island?

“Because”, he replied, “this is an issue which is being discussed all over the world.”

Well, Dr Gonzi is 100 per cent correct. It is true that abortion, as an issue, is being discussed all over the world. All over the world, that is, except for Malta.

***

Think about it: who needs discussion, when we can simply do a spot of “Constitutional gymnastics” instead? Yes, that’s right: let’s just sweep the whole abortion issue under a great big carpet called the “Maltese Constitution”... and that way, we’ll simply never have to discuss it again. For if, all of a sudden, a two-thirds majority is required to change the law... then why would any politician bother to even raise the issue at all? And if the issue isn’t raised by a politician, then why – in a country where politicians dictate the agenda for discussion on absolutely everything – should anyone else even bother?

And that, more or less, is the extent of it. This is not a proposal to ban abortion at all. For when has our Constitution ever successfully banned anything, anyway? Isn’t this the same Constitution which forbids American warships from entering our harbours... with the result that there are five or six of them visiting a week? Isn’t it the same Constitution which states that the government’s primary objective is to protect the landscape? And which clearly stipulates that to be a member of the Cabinet of Ministers, you have to be an elected representative? Well, just take one look at our landscape, as well as our Cabinet, and tell me what you see.

No, this is a proposal designed only to ban discussion. Just transfer a couple of paragraphs from the Criminal Code to the Constitution, and hey presto! You will have effectively crushed any prospect of a debate of the subject – forever.

***

Which is, of course, the right thing to do. For let’s face it: what is there to discuss, anyway? The entire country is in agreement on this issue. And if there were any pro-choice people out there, they are either extinct, or have been so thoroughly bludgeoned into submission that they wouldn’t dare express their views for fear of being burnt at the stake in Palace Square.

This leaves only the lesser, ancillary issues to discuss. For instance, the fact that despite all our “Catholic values”, we still have one of Europe’s highest incidence of teenagers dropping pregnant out of school. And that, for all our insistence on duttrina and muzew, we still have kids who publicly boast on TV chat shows that they don’t use condoms because they are “bla sens”.

But since when are these issues a good enough reason to go upsetting the Catholic majority with scary concepts such as “discussion” and “debate”? Don’t we know from experience that the moment we start talking about things, all the filth and rot just comes rushing to the surface? That we’d have liberals and corrupters of youth advocating the introduction of sex education (never!) in government schools? And what will they demand next? That, instead of spending tax-payers’ money on billboards advertising “new roads” (which are currently ready, but being warmed up for President Ciampi’s visit this week), we get a campaign encouraging something the country sorely needs for a change... like greater awareness on contraception, and other sex-related issues?

***

No, of course not. After all, this is not about morality, only about appearances. Who cares if the little sluts continue getting pregnant, and the little punks continue spreading their semen and their diseases all over the place? We can always blame it on the liberals, on the non-Catholics, on the evil Greens. And anyhow, the important thing here is not that people take better care of themselves. The important thing is that they don’t come to us begging for an abortion afterwards. Oh, no. If they want an abortion, they can go and get it somewhere else. Not here, in Holy Malta where everything is Good and Gold. Let them go to England or Italy... after all, a little clause in the Constitution is hardly going to stop anyone anyway. And they can have as many abortions as they like, too. Even 600 in six years in the UK alone, as recent statistics suggest. So long as they don’t go telling anybody about it afterwards. So long as they keep their traumas, their problems, their very existence well out of sight... ideally, locked away in the basement, alongside homosexuals, cohabiting couples and other such “aberrations of nature”.

***

So allow me to be the first – sorry, the second – to publicly endorse the PN’s official status as “Government of God”. While I’m it, let me also propose that, with immediate effect, all non-Catholics are declared “anti-constitutional”. Then, after the fashion of Senator Mcarthy, we can use it as an excuse to round up all our sinners and lock them up in a concentration camp with the rest of the island’s infidels. Of course, we will treat them with the utmost of human dignity and respect. At a stretch, we’ll even give them four whole toilets to share among the lot of them. But we’ll keep them safely out of sight and out of mind, where they can’t continue spreading their vile immorality all over the place.

Otherwise, who knows the danger they may pose to our traditional Catholic values? They might start demanding gay marriages and the introduction of divorce. Worse still, they might even try and get in the way of the nice family photo for which we’re all posing: you know, the one with daddy Eddie, mummy Lawrence and baby Tonio, all simpering piously as Pope Benedict XVI himself confers upon them his blessing, as well as the much-coveted “Super Catholic Family of the Millennium” award.

***

And then, with all the heretics out of the way, and all discussion dead and buried, we can spend the rest of Eternity patting each other on the back for being such unbelievably good Catholics. The only country to have “Catholicism” enshrined in its Constitution.

The only country to have resisted the onset of divorce for so long... simply because our Prime Minister was happily married, and therefore didn’t see the point. The only country to have willingly signed away jurisdiction over an entire chapter in the Civil Code to the Holy See. And above all, the only country to have joined the European Union in the name of “progress”... only to almost immediately take a giant, crab-like step backwards, and land all the way back in the pre-Napoleonic age.

***

Right, I’m off to sleep, hopefully for a few years. Someone please wake me when this great national exercise in hypocrisy is over.