From Mr P. Vincenti

It is most confusing that on the same page, Daphne Caruana Galizia defends the wonder of nature and the beauty of the missing hoopoes and snarls at the hunter, yet agrees with the destruction of innocent and defenceless human life in the womb.

There are a number of points in her article that need to be clarified (TMID, 16 May). The morning after pill is considered to be abortive as it can also kill a newly conceived life with its unique DNA. It seems to me that Daphne feels that life is not worth anything until it implants in its mother’s womb. Using this same argument therefore, no person deserves any rights until he or she has a home to live and grow up in. The womb, in simplified terms, is a temporary place of shelter where a baby can grow and receive nourishment until it is ready to be born.

The womb is the first place of residence of the newly formed human being. It is in effect, one’s very first postal address. The life that the morning after pill has many times destroyed, is the same life that would otherwise have continued to live and grow happily in that most wonderful of places.

If asked, “When does pregnancy begin,” most people would correctly respond that it begins with conception. In fact, embryology texts stress that in the meeting of sperm and egg, a genetically unique human embryo is formed, and life begins. It would seem, then, that a contraceptive (something contra-against-conception) would prevent conception. Not today. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has refined contraceptive to include anything that prevents implantation as well as fertilization. In other words, though conception has taken place, no pregnancy is considered to have occurred if implantation is prevented. In truth, if conception has taken place and implantation is prevented, the birth control method is working as an abortifacient, which is causing a very early abortion before the woman even knows she is pregnant. The advantage of redefining the start of a pregnancy is singular, it means more sales of the morning after pill. By redefining the start of a pregnancy, “the problem” of abortion disappears as no pregnancy is supposed to have existed in the first place.

There are several major print medical dictionaries and several on-line versions. Under pressure from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), many of them have changed the definition of “conception” in the last few years, proving once again that verbal engineering always precedes social (and medical) engineering. It is evident that some of us have come to conveniently accept the redesigned definitions.

Daphne claims that men have no right to discuss what is principally a woman’s concern. The matter of life and death of another human being should never be a matter of gender. The primary focus here is the unborn child and not whether a male or female person is more qualified to tell us whether that life has or has not got the right to live.

Daphne claims that because the morning after pill may be bought legally oversees, that for some reason, this fact alone somehow makes the Maltese moral position on this matter incorrect. I remind her that in parts of the Arab world, it is still perfectly acceptable to circumcise women. Does this also make female circumcision acceptable locally?

Daphne feels that it is perfectly acceptable to kill a baby when it is younger rather than later on in the pregnancy. It is this manner of illogical and warped reasoning we are being asked to consider that worries me most about her article.

The point of lesser evil she refers to implies that human life has varying degrees of value. This is a fallacy. Who would accept that a newborn has less value than a teenager? Or that a middle aged person would have less human rights than a pensioner. Ask any woman who has had a miscarriage and she will tell you she has lost a baby and not some “thing” of lesser value. Our society is based on fundamental human rights. The only stage of human development that our politicians now have to fully protect are the stages prior to birth as the unborn child still does not have the right to life as you and I do through the Constitution of our country.

When a personal agenda becomes personal, then issues are clouded and reason loses out to its age-old enemy, pride. The unborn child needs people like Daphne to speak up in their defence and not to condemn them to death because they are termed as “unwanted” There may be unwanted pregnancies, but there are never unwanted babies. Somewhere, someone will want that child.

Paul Vincenti

CE Gift of Life