Some weeks ago, I posted on Facebook that I’m in favour of life from the moment of conception till death.  A person sent me a message saying that I’m discriminating others like the poor, who don’t have the opportunity or opportunities like others who can easily decide to go abroad to get an abortion and… immediately I uttered a reply that I disagree. The person in question described this reasoning as stupid thinking.  However, my reply was that the poor at heart is the one who is ignorant, and seeks an easy way out, by staying in the middle of the situation, doing nothing before the killing of a small creature, with no voice and with so much innocence.

From my experience, all the females who I’ve met throughout my life who had an abortion had something in common: they never forgave themselves for what they did.  They still feel guilty about what they did, throughout all their lives.  They still feel incomplete.  How can I (apart from being a politician) not point out these matters and stay deaf and dumb, without uttering my voice?  Our duty is to be a voice for the innocent, a voice to those who never speak, a voice to all the females who are still unhappy with what they did.

Malta, or we as Maltese, cannot close our eyes and remain naïve before a young lady who got pregnant, but instead we must console her and never put pressure on her over the situation she is in.  The state should support her, irrespective of which part of the island she comes from, give her support and arm her with knowledge in favour of life. Mostly she must be shown solidary for the difficult situation she is in, as the Life Network’s ‘Dar Tghanniqa t’Omm’ is doing in Mosta.  

If the child in the mother’s womb is alive then it has the right to live.  We must defend human life from the moment of conception. If we’re giving the mother the right to kill her child in her womb, how can we control all our society to be non-violent?

Nobody expects to have the right to destroy the life of a person or of another person as a threat to them.  Another arguement being posed is euthanasia, that is to terminate the life of a vulnerable person.  Even in this case we’re choosing the easy way out.  There should always be respect from everybody, the criteria of this fundamental right should not be whether the child is killed or not in the womb.  We should always decide, in the name of Malta, whether we should keep Malta as that unique, safe country or to allow society to change into being comfortably numb.

As a State we need to have the courage to help all the young ladies and women, so they’ll know everything about the situation they’re in.  We shouldn’t leave this responsibility to just mothers or to just the State, but we need to work together and insist to have all the truth and not be egoistic.

If one believes, like me, that abortion is the contrary of what nature is, then we need to defend the human being and his existence from when he is born till the day he dies and never condemn others on the difficult dilemmas  they find themselves in.  We associate abortion with murder or with the killing of a child, because we’re free and we live and know what it means to live a life especially a good one. Living a good life means living with responsibility and so no one can call himself free if he can’t control himself.

The Nationalist Party’s status is clear enough and that’s why I am proud of what my political party is.  Nobody is going to comment or remove the party’s soul, the ideologies it has or the faith I have in the PN. Our faith has no middle ground because if we stay doing nothing, we are still guilty.

I’d like to end with a quote, from the ex-President of United States, Ronald Reagan: “I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.”

Ivan Bartolo is a PN MP and the party’s spokesperson for social housing.