Not exactly. It did not come out of the blue. When Gift of Life presented its case to the Parliamentary Social Affairs Committee in January this year, it had done its homework well.

A loophole in the Maltese legislation had been discovered: a simple parliamentary majority could introduce abortion. A solution was sought in the Constitution of Ireland (Section 40.3 of which speaks on the personal rights of the citizen, subsection 3 gives the explicit right to life of the unborn). We learned from the Irish experience.

Our presentation was accompanied by an opinion survey, professionally conducted, which showed 86 per cent of the random population interviewed is against abortion. The figure is consistent with successive opinion polls held by different organisations which put the percentage against abortion between 83 per cent (The Sunday Times) and 92 per cent (Xarabank).

When asked if the government should do all it can to prevent abortion ever being legalised in Malta, in January 1982 per cent believed in the affirmative. The figure proved consistent when the recent Xarabank survey showed that 88 per cent of the population were in favour of the law banning abortion being entrenched in the Constitution. In our presentation we argued for an immediate constitutional safeguard for the unborn.

On 6 May, Minister Tonio Borg announced that the government had taken up the suggestion and had made plans for the anti-abortion law to be entrenched in the Constitution. In the week following the proposal, there was a general feeling of satisfaction among the population.

This was followed by a stream of letters criticising the Government as being driven by fundamentalism. It is not. It is driven by popular support and a determination that what is right will prevail, whatever the liberal elite says. Now there is public outcry and political consensus and now is the time to act. Is-sewwa jirbah zgur. Remember?

Dr Michael Micallef MD

Mosta