It was around 17 years ago that she told me her secret. Up till then we were great friends and I could swear we told each other everything. We used to know each other at school and we continued our relationship even after we were married.

We did lose contact for about a year or so and after this absence, she was never the same again. She looked withdrawn and tired. She rarely laughed anymore and every time we discussed babies she would do her best to change the subject.

It was one cold February that she relented and told me her sad story. She had had an abortion after her two children. This one wasn’t planned, not when her last baby was only three months old. She cried and cried and I thought her tears would never stop.

I tried my hardest to console her but it didn’t help much. She felt that she had killed something living inside her.

After a while we drifted apart. It seemed as though she was ashamed of having told me and wanted to avoid me. The last time I heard of her, she had gone to live abroad. I guess her pain never eased.

What Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, president of the Health Council, said during a press conference reminded me of my long-lost friend. The cardinal condemned the proposal that children born with a grave disability could be killed.

The cardinal issued a statement saying that the Church would keep on preaching that the gift of life comes from God and therefore no elimination of that life should come from man. Therefore the innocent life of a baby should be respected because abortion and euthanasia should never be permitted.

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan maintained that when one terminates the life of a vulnerable being, even if the baby is premature and seriously disabled, one is acting in an illicit manner. The cardinal also disapproved of being instrumental in putting an end to the life of children with a terminal illness and others with serious defects in their bodies.

I am the first to agree that killing is killing no matter if it’s an abortion to do with a severely handicapped child or a child struck with a serious malady, the end result being death. The beginning and the end of a life are in the hands of He who created us and man should be wary of abortion, euthanasia and the death penalty.

Whether one agrees with the Church or not, one has to respect the fact that it is God’s divine right to be the Creator of life and the same applies when one’s time on earth is done.

If tomorrow never comes I want the world to know that I have never approved of abortion and should I suffer agonies through some serious illness, I want to go when it’s time to go and not have somebody playing God to soothe away my pains.

If tomorrow never comes, I want people to remember me as a true Christian whose faith in God never wavered until I drew my last breathe.

Valerie Borg

Valletta