In the same week we had Gordon Brown quoting religious texts to justify why he wouldn’t give advantage to children of married parents with tax breaks, we had a pro abortion doctor trying to make her voice heard on our very fundamentalist shores.

First of all I think it was a mistake bringing Dr Rebecca Gomperts here. There is no debate on this subject locally. The debate, if you can call it that, is around when independent life begins, at conception or a little after, and we only have this debate because Gift of Life people worry about two cells when millions of children are dying of starvation every year and are being sexually abused.

We all may agree abortion is wrong in itself but understand why people do it in certain circumstances. While the vast majority are staunchly against abortion, another majority live their own lives and when push comes to shove, if their daughter is raped they would consider abortion, not here, of course, but abroad. Nobody will admit this, so it’s useless having surveys on this area. Surveys about abortion are as useful as surveys for five full years telling us how people intend to vote. Let’s do these surveys in the last three months, otherwise they are a real bore with the majority not saying who they will vote for anyway.

The majority then abhor the idea of abortion but many might actually do it in certain circumstances, even though they will never admit it in a survey.

It’s the same moral dilemma addressed in an excellent, if depressing, film I saw at St James Cavalier this week. In the Good German, George Clooney meets an ex girlfriend, a Jewess who has survived the war. To do so, it turns out at the end, she turned in 12 other Jews. Abhorrent we all think. We wouldn’t do that, we would all proclaim. Perhaps for our children we would. Perhaps to save our own skin we would. People are not naturally martyrs, which is why perhaps the Catholic Church celebrates martyrdoms so much. Martyrdom is equivalent to saintliness and we are definitely all more sinners than saints.

So Dr Gomperts’ visit achieved very little. The heads of our Church came out and said what we expect them to say and what is their right to say. I only have one quibble. They say only God can take away life, and their use of the word murder, saying abortion is always murder, presumably even after the first 24 hours after fertilisation. I do not agree. What about all the miscarriages, nature’s own way of aborting children that often might not have a good chance of survival. Other perfectly good potential children die in the womb because the mother’s womb doesn’t work well. Is that murder? Is nature murdering too? Do we believe miscarriages come from God too? Miscarriages are terrible. Women suffer a lot with miscarriages, even though we don’t make much of fuss about this, like some fundamentalists who don’t worry too much about childless families, preferring to spout anti IVF dogma in case a couple of cells don’t get used.

But some sensible talk is coming from our priests too. One priest stood up this weekend and said an amazing thing for Malta. I would like to have seen that on the front pages of our newspapers. PBS covered the story very well though. He said cohabitation is more anti-marriage than divorce. Divorce is about people wanting to marry again. Cohabitation is shunning the idea of marriage at all as the best place to bring up children which I think most of us agree it normally is even though not everyone is blessed with marriages that can work.

The anti-divorce stance in Malta is creating more families being brought up chaotically. That is a fact. People are just cohabitating after separation because there is no other choice. They can’t marry again. We do not let them. So we force them into social chaos. All those doom and gloomers who say divorce will bring chaos had better open their eyes and smell the coffee.

Look around Marsascala and Cottonera, Sliema and St Julian’s, St Paul’s Bay and Bugibba where many separated people or mistresses of married men go to live. There is an enormous subculture growing up round us, and make no mistake, these families who can’t marry are already having a huge social impact. They will also have a huge impact at the next election because they live in areas where there are definitely some borderline seats to be won.

I agree it would be better if nobody ever needed an abortion. But starvation and real as opposed to relative poverty exist. Rape exists. Incest exists. What if your dad or step dad made you pregnant? Similarly, I think one family and one marriage is best. But if your husband beats you, two times you or simply ignores you or repeatedly undermines you, does life have to be a living hell?

But then again women according to our Church have to endure. No wonder in countless surveys most women declare to be happier after divorce, poorer yes but happier. Men on the other hand don’t. They often regret their affair, their gambling ways and the like. The institutions in this country, including the very male dominated Church, need to act.

Things are getting better, but the change is way, way too slow. Too many sinners here pretend to be saints, and too many women are expected to be saints to bolster our society and its very thin veneer of Christian values.

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