Dear Tonio,
Hi. How are you? I hope you are well. Sorry I haven’t kept in touch lately. Nothing personal, it’s just that I left the island last September for a brief course in this thing called “journalism” – fascinating subject: ask Karl Stagno Navarra, he’ll tell you all about it – and guess what? I discovered that there’s this great big round thing out there called “The World”, and I got a little distracted.
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Still: I occasionally manage to tear myself away from this fascinating new discovery to scan the papers back home. Just the other day I was reading an on-line newspaper, and: oh look! There you were, smug as ever, milling around City Gate in the company of a handful of... um... perfectly decent, non-fundamentalist Maltese citizens on a sponsored Pro-Life walk. Ah, good old Tonio. Always at the forefront of the fight for the human foetus, aye? (Except on those occasions when the human foetus are actually being aborted... in which case, strangely enough, Tonio is never anywhere to be seen.)
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But hang on a sec. It says here that you made a speech at that event, and that... what? Tonio, you have obviously been misquoted. According to this report, you claimed last Sunday that “those who did not defend the rights of the unborn child were ‘conveniently already born themselves’.”
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Clearly, the reporter must have been mistaken. (But then, I can’t be certain, as I wasn’t there at the time. And judging by the photo, hardly anyone else was.) For, leaving aside the thinly veiled hint of “if you disagree with me, it means you’re in favour of abortion” blackmail – far too unchristian to be uttered by a paragon of human virtue such as our Tonio – the implication is also that failure to agree with your entrenchment proposal is somehow the same thing as failure to defend the rights of the unborn child.
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Well, hate to rain on your pro-life parade, but it is actually the other way round. Many entrenchment opponents (for yes, there are many) are worried about precisely the opposite: that, by allowing ourselves to be transported by religious zeal instead of common sense, we might make the mistake of accidentally ushering in abortion through the back door without even realising it.
How? Here, I’ll show you.
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It works like this. The law as it stands today gives any individual judge the complete freedom to single-handedly determine the precise moment of inception of human life. And the same judge can identify any point of the gestation period he or she pleases, too. And this is the aspect of your scheme that has befuddled so many intelligent in this glorious, non-fundamentalist island of ours. For it seems, Tonio, that the entire crux of your argument concerns a perceived danger that Parliament might suddenly perform the mother of all U-turns – before the summer recess, judging by the enormous haste with which you intend to rush this thing through – and legalise abortion by means of a simple majority vote. Not what I would call a very likely scenario, Tonio... especially when you consider that the party currently occupying the majority of seats is the Nationalist Party. (Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that you don’t trust your own party not to legalise abortion before summer. In which case, you’d better speak to Lawrence about it.)
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And yet, in your obsession with non-existent threats, you are entirely overlooking a very real and present danger. With the law the way it is, it remains far, far likelier that abortion might find its way into the already murky legal cocktail of our Criminal Code by nothing more dramatic than the future appointment of a single pro-choice judge, male or female, at any time between now and all eternity. After all, the same law which makes abortion illegal – and which you, Tonio, would like to entrench in the Constitution – fails to specify what abortion even is. Now you tell me, Tonio (being a lawyer and all): what would happen in the highly unlikely event that the police actually prosecuted a Maltese girl for terminating a pregnancy... only to be told that no crime had taken place, because in the judge’s opinion, life doesn’t actually begin until so many weeks after conception?
Et voila. OK, not a permanent legalisation, valid in each and every single case. It would be more like accidentally handling the ball in the penalty area: some referees award the penalty, others don’t.
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This, I fear, will be the grand outcome of your precious constitutional entrenchment exercise: the mathematical certainty that, in the fullness of time, abortion will be partially legalised in this country. Not by Parliament, but by the Law Courts... as, after all, was the case in the United States of America.
Absolutely marvellous, I must say. Rebecca Gomperts would be proud. Oh, and in case you think I’m exaggerating, or have somehow got the whole thing wrong, I suggest you consult the members of your own party’s think tank. They’ve been trying to explain this to you ever since you first made the proposal last spring.
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Beg your pardon? Ah, the Irish model. I almost forgot. Yes, Tonio, there is a precedent in Europe for this kind of regressive legislation. In fact, I am fairly close to Ireland right now, and I’ve taken the opportunity to examine the Irish model in great detail. Can you guess what immediate difference I spotted between the Irish constitutional amendment of 1983, and the curious legal perversion you yourself are attempting to get away with in Malta? No? OK, I’ll give you a clue. One word. Ten letters. Four syllables. Starts with an “R”. Ends with an “M”. Now, let’s see if you can work out what it is before the summer recess.
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Two hundred associations, I hear you say? Are you perchance referring to the same 200 associations, which replied to your letter within the June 2005 deadline, as requested? You know, the letter that went something like: “Hi there. This is your Justice Minister speaking. I’m going to entrench our abortion laws into the Constitution, and I would greatly appreciate it if you all fell instantly to your knees and showered me with thanks and praise for allowing you to be part of this wonderful initiative. You have till the end of June to comply. Naturally, you are equally free not to respond... but just remember that, apart from being Justice Minister and the Roman Catholic equivalent of Bruce Willis, I’m also Head Honcho Number Two at the Nationalist Party and the Gvern Ta’ Malta... that’s right, the guys with whom it pays to be good friends...”
Yes, I can see how that would bring all the tombola clubs and Ju Jitsu associations rolling right in.
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What? The Chamber of Advocates supported you too, did they? Hmmm. I think you’ll find that on closer inspection, the support this Chamber actually advocated came complete with a certain condition that you conveniently omitted to ever mention: the inclusion of a legal definition of the start of human life.
And why, dear Tonio, do you think the Chamber stipulated that condition in particular? Let’s see now. Could it be because, unlike yourself, the Chamber instantly recognised the above-mentioned danger of a judge using his (or her) discretionary powers to permit abortion any time a case is brought before the courts? And that they were desperately trying to draw your attention to it, in order to avoid you a lot of unnecessary embarrassment later? I wonder.
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Right, now I have a little question for you. It’s been asked before, but never fully answered as far as I can tell. Considering that what you are effectively proposing is a far-reaching reform of this country’s abortion laws... why has there not been any government White Paper on the subject? Why has no one been asked to submit suggestions and recommendations, as is usually the case? And why-oh-why are we assisting instead to this amorphous, hybrid and largely improvised method of yours, when there is a perfectly good parliamentary mechanism designed specifically for the purpose of changing laws?
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Let me guess: you assumed that, because the subject in question is abortion, that great antidote to rationality and common sense, it would automatically trigger off such a chain reaction of mass hysteria that we would all be blinded to the fact that ordinary procedures exist specifically for cases such as these.
Well, think again, Tonio. If, that is, you even thought about it the first time...
Fond regards, and love to Lawrence,
Raphael.
PS: Let me know when that you finally get round to publishing that White Paper. I have a whole box-file full of suggestions.