Not to say ‘I told you so’, but…

I’m not usually one to say ‘I told you so’ – we-e-ell, OK, perhaps I am… but hey, that’s only because I find myself “telling you so” so darn often – but on this occasion, even I was taken aback by the sheer speed at which one of my earlier predictions came true.

It was not, I admit, the most difficult prediction to make. No animal entrails were required for dissection on an altar. No crystal balls, either (understandably enough, as one’s testicles do not actually affect the science of prophecy in any way, no matter what substance they are made of…) 

What other arcane arts may or may not have been involved, I shall keep to myself for the moment. Suffice it to say that two weeks ago I accurately predicted that any politician, from any party, would be instantly pilloried for daring to even mention the word ‘abortion’ in the local context (at least, not when loudly criticising the other party’s voting record in the European Parliament on the same issue – more of which in a sec). 

And oh, look: out pops young Jamie Vella, an 18-year-old member of the Nationalist Party executive, who took the trouble of proving me right just yesterday, 15 days later. So immediately after writing this, I’ll be contacting the Guinness Book of Records to ask if they have a category for “speediest (and most unabashedly smug) ‘I told you so’ ever” (and if ever I get a reply, you can rest assured I’ll ‘tell you so’ about that, too…).

But in any case: Vella went on record saying this week that he believed abortion should be available to “those who need it”. Crash, bang, shock, horror…

Naturally, the masses of online commentators who scrambled to respond, failed to notice – perhaps they were too busy dismembering the hapless Jamie and feeding him to the lions, piece by piece – that in so doing, Vella was merely quoting chapter and verse from the official health policies of the European Union… you know, the same EU we’ve been a member of since 2004, and whose policies on female reproductive rights we have all studiously avoided discussing these past 11 years.

Another thing that escaped their notice is that Jamie Vella’s suggestion is also standard practice in all other EU states, and indeed all civilised countries in the world (including many where abortion-on-demand is also illegal). 

Just to clarify matters; Vella was very clearly speaking about precisely the sort of extreme cases where a strict application of Maltese law (which, incidentally, never happens) could prove fatal to the mother. Examples include the much-published recent case in Paraguay, where a 10-year-old girl was raped and impregnated by her stepfather. 

Following recent amendments to Ireland’s (previously analogous) abortion ban, Malta is now officially the only EU country to legally deny abortions in all such cases, without any exception whatsoever: not for rape, not for incest (or both), not even where the mother’s life may be at risk.

And as any MEP will tell you in private (but never in public), this is considered a very basic breach of human rights in the rest of Europe… in fact, it is the one area where all six of our MEPs have to put up with questions and criticism all the time.

So finally, belatedly, it seems that random individuals here and there are waking up to the reality that we can’t just go on pretending ours isn’t a Third World country when it comes to female reproduction rights. First it was a guest speaker at a recent ‘conference of ideas’ (organised, incidentally by the Nationalist Party), calling for a revision of party policy on the subject… and now a junior PN member, who went one step further and suggested a legislative change to actually bring our laws in line with the rest of civilisation.

This naturally points towards a teenie-weenie irony in the fact that both these noises happened to come from the Nationalist Party: all three of whose MEPs very recently voted against an EP resolution calling for emergency abortion to save the life of the above-mentioned 10-year-old girl. 

But no matter. When ‘I told you so’ two weeks ago, I was referring to any local political party. And in Vella’s case, the response was as instantaneous as it was farcically predictable. 

An NGO called ‘The Gift of Life Foundation’ immediately rounded on the PN, ‘challenging’ it to reaffirm its pro-life principles… OR ELSE! This was followed by a barrage of (very evidently orchestrated) online comments below the article, threatening ‘never to vote PN again’ until a clarification was forthcoming…

So of course, the PN hastily recited its own little bit from the rehearsed script: ‘No, we haven’t changed our policy on abortion, no, Jamie Vella does not speak on behalf of the PN… and yes, we are a party which tolerates and permits various topics to be discussed among our members, etc. etc.’ 

About the only less-than-predictable thing about the PN’s statement is that it stopped short of actually criticising its young and (some would say) foolhardy young whippersnapper. And a significant detail it is, too. Other than that, however, there was no mistaking the whimpering tone of a beaten dog retreating submissively into its kennel. After all, someone, somewhere, had dared to squeak the word ‘abortion’ against the express wishes of ‘GoL almighty’ itself… retribution must be merciless and swift, etc.

Ok, thus far my prophecy seems to have materialised almost in every detail. Almost. It is admittedly a little too early to say whether Vella’s political career will have been ‘destroyed’ (as I also predicted) as a result of his outspokenness… we’ll have to wait for an election to see. But the pattern of events has nonetheless unfolded exactly in the same vein as every other time when ‘abortion’ became an issue in Malta. 

As it does, every so often… not because there is any actual demand for a discussion at street-level; but simply because of the repeated, alarmist and quite frankly unhinged attempts by Gift of Life to have us all believe that there is some kind of Satanic conspiracy afoot, aimed at somehow forcing this country to legislate in favour of abortion against its will.

This has been going on uninterruptedly in the background since roughly 2005, when GoL orchestrated a mass effort, spearheaded by the former Justice Minister, Tonio Borg, to amend the Constitution so that no future generation – regardless of what cultural, social or even medical changes may take place in the meantime – would ever be able to change Malta’s current abortion law in any detail (or at least, not without mustering a two-thirds majority in parliament… which in practical terms means never).

Anyway: GoL failed in this immediate endeavour, for much the same reason as it would later fail to prevent a national majority from voting in favour of divorce in 2011. Like the government it influenced so much at the time, it was entirely oblivious to the direction in which the rest of the country was visibly moving. And judging by its hysterical reaction today to a young politician who is merely echoing widespread European thought… it evidently still is.  

But in one area, I must say GoL was extremely successful. They have managed to create an aura of fear around this topic, aimed specifically at discouraging people like Jamie Vella from deviating in any way from the approved script. And they have publicly boasted about this, too. GoL’s chairman, Paul Vincenti, has repeatedly ‘warned’ politicians about the ‘consequences’ of failing to share his NGO’s views in the matter: examples include former MEP John Attard Montalto, rattled for voting in favour of an EP resolution to permit abortion in cases of genocidal mass-rape; and MEP hopeful Sharon Ellul Bonici, for expressing reservations about Malta’s blanket abortion ban.

Jamie Vella himself describes this tactic on Facebook: “How silly, not only are they against giving women the right of choice over their own bodies (a safeguarded right in most modern democratic countries), but it seems they are also against the liberty of an open debate on the matter, by attempting to shame anyone not in line with their ridiculous propaganda.”

Spot on, I’d say. It is precisely the strategy Gift of Life has (in its own words) ‘aggressively’ pursued, ever since being foisted onto the political stage in 2005.

But will it continue to work? Ah, now there’s the thing I didn’t quite predict at all. And for the moment, the answer looks a very likely ‘No’.

Leaving aside all the reactions to Vella’s ‘bolt from the blue’: I have no idea whether this random event was in any way planned by the Nationalist Party, or whether Jamie Vella really did just suddenly pipe up out of nowhere. Either way, in many respects it puts paid to the old strategy used endlessly by the PN (most recently against Alfred Sant, who voted in favour of the Paraguayan resolution) of tarnishing their political adversaries with the ‘pro-choice’ label at every opportunity.

Judging by the zeal with which it wielded this political battle-axe in the past – most often against Alternattiva Demokratika, in spite of countless declarations that it was statutorily against abortion – anyone would think the PN in government was the sole guarantor that abortion would never, ever even be discussed in this country… let alone introduced. But how can it continue to plug that line, when, to date, the only calls for a discussion on abortion in this country have actually come from within its own structures?

Considering that Jamie Vella is a member of the youth section – and only 18 to boot – it is now far likelier that a future PN government might be the one to actually change the country’s course in this particular area. There is at least one Nationalist member proposing a different direction for the future… there are none in any other party.

As for that other strategy, of constantly ‘naming and shaming’ Labour MEPs for voting in favour of resolutions which include (among thousands of other things) references to ‘female reproductive rights’ in other countries…. well, that too gets flushed down the toilet along with the placenta, now that the PN itself has given birth to a possible future in which abortion in Malta may no longer be… ahem…inconceivable.

Was this deliberate? All part of a master plan to break away from former shackles, and finally jettison all the fundamentalist baggage the party had acquired over the years? Perhaps. I’d like to think so myself: it would be perfectly consistent with the stand the party has taken with Jamie Vella himself, who crossed one of the PN’s self-avowed ‘red lines’, and was not even mildly admonished as a result.

But whatever the motive behind this curious turn of events, one thing is certain. The old ‘abortion trump card’ has now been well and truly terminated… and that’s a heck of a lot to have to thank an 18-year-old party official for, you know…