I have come to distrust anything that says it was reached unanimously and so, without entering into the details, I am distrusting the so-called Abortion Clause approved by the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

At least there was Rosianne Cutajar, whatever else can say about her, who would have registered a negative vote had the vote been taken vocally. But since this all-important vote was carried as they say, “on the nod”, Rosianne was not even allowed to register her solitary and ineffective negative vote.

Nor were the rest of the MPs on both sides allowed to express their reservations, if they had them. And all those women elected not on the strength of the votes they obtained but on the simple fact of their being women.

So there we have it now – the House of Representatives of this country has unanimously approved the amendment that brought to an end a year-long national controversy between those in favour of retaining the total ban and those in favour of relaxing the ban.

Last weekend we were told about quiet diplomacy over the past months with a strong input by the President which apparently led to the ultimate agreement. This, in my mind, reinforced, rather than decreased, my reservations.

So now virtue has triumphed and abortion remains banned except for one or two exceptions which have always been operational it would seem.

National unity has been preserved whatever people might think considering the hatred expressed in so many online diatribes which now extend to the mother mourning the callous death of her son to the extent of being warned by a policeman for daring to affix a streamer of protest outside the police headquarters.

And national unity has been preserved by the archbishop being present at the inauguration of the Caqnu head office along with the prime minister as well as their joint presence at the dual Farsons inauguration. But then Farsons do everything as it should be done and Caqnu does almost nothing as it should be done and thus has a list of enforcement notices as long as your hand.

Foetuses will still be aborted both here and abroad and as elsewhere the mothers, especially the mothers, will still have to live with the guilt. Families will still split up and children will still be brought up by their grannies, if they’re lucky.

And the Catholic faith is still strong as can be seen from the many and noisy festas held every weekend in summer. Or is it?

One can otherwise simply follow the second apparition of Joseph Muscat before the Public Accounts Committee in the very same building where the anti-abortion unanimity was reached (and almost on the same day) to understand on what flimsy ground this unanimity was based.

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