[ANALYSIS] Malta’s abortion debate: Ticking the next progressive box

The first ripples in the abortion debate were created by isolated left-wing and feminist voices both within and outside the Labour Party in the late 1970s. But pro-choice arguments in Malta have always drowned under the weight of the near unanimous popular consensus against abortion. Malta defied the liberalisation trend in southern European countries like Italy and post-Francoist Spain in the 1980s.

Instead, Malta evaded the issue by benefitting from the safety valve offered to Maltese women through the availability of safe and legal abortion in the UK, at least for those who can afford to pay. For while the abortion debate in Europe and elsewhere was informed by the crude reality of the risks posed by dangerous back-street abortions that left thousands of women butchered, Malta could export its problems while clinging to its firm pro-life stance.

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The first scare: EU membership

It was EU membership in the early 2000s which first raised alarm among conservatives of a ‘gateway’ to abortion, even if these fears were allayed by the fact that a social conservative like Eddie Fenech Adami was firmly at the helm.

To pre-empt any debate on this issue, the Nationalist Party went as far as annexing a protocol to the EU membership treaty to ensure that in any case of possible conflict between EU law and Maltese law or jurisprudence on the issue of abortion, Maltese law would prevail.

Curiously it was a poster on the Labour party’s Naxxar club, which warned that the European Union “believes” in abortion, euthanasia, and same-sex marriage. The poster was immediately removed after protests by the Malta Gay rights movement but it was a very revealing aspect on the ideological topsy-turvy word of Maltese politics.

Labour will probably bank on being seen by liberals as the least conservative of the two parties by coming across as the party which is against abortion but open to debate on it

Ultimately EU membership won the day in what was the last instance where the PN managed to project itself as a broad church which included both liberals and conservatives united by an all-encompassing battle-cry.

Yet after taking Malta in the European Union, and now in desperate need of a new identity, the new PN leadership under Lawrence Gonzi toyed with moral conservatism as its new flagship.

The first shots were fired against Alternattiva Demokratika before the 2004 MEP elections, which were targeted over their international ties with the pro-choice Greens. The campaign backfired only because AD played the victim of big bully tactics by reaffirming its anti-abortion stance.

In subsequent years the conservative faction in the PN led by newly-elected deputy leader Tonio Borg felt an urgent need to kill any further debate on this issue, by going as far as writing to all civil society organisations – including band clubs and bowling (bocci) associations – to support the constitutional entrenchment of the criminal laws against abortion.

The climate reigning in the country at the time was summed up by rebel Dominican priest Mark Montebello as a way to flag Maltese independence from Europe. “Abortion is being used to mark our freedom from Europe. Why not make a monument for abortion? It’s as if we have been invited to a party where all guests are liberals but as a fetish we wear a swastika badge. Abortion has become the new fetish of Maltese conservatives.”

Fr Peter Serracino Inglott, who was closer to the PN establishment, was also skeptical, noting that the only point of the constitutional entrenchment was “to ensure that a future government will not be able to introduce abortion easily”, something he described as “a lack of confidence in the democratic process”.

Tonio Borg’s proposal even earned the rebuke of former EU commissioner Emma Bonino who described the idea of entrenching abortion in the Constitution as “bizarre”.

The opposition to the proposal among liberals, including PN-leaning ones, prompted Tonio Borg to dub them the “liberal elite”, a derogatory term coined by US Republicans to rail against the educated and open-minded middle-class.

Ultimately it was Alfred Sant’s unwillingness to engage in the debate that ultimately killed Borg’s proposal, which required a two-thirds majority in parliament to pass.

But at that stage, rather than defending women’s right to choose, the reaction of most liberals was to insist that abortion was not even an issue in Malta. Since nobody except fringe characters like men’s rights advocate Emmy Bezzina and foreign campaigners like Dutch medic and women’s rights activist Rebecca Gomperts, were proposing legal abortion in Malta.

There was no need to discuss the issue, let alone entrench the ban in the Constitution.

Yet the attempt to entrench the abortion ban in the Constitution had a lasting legacy, with the emergence of an organised and militant pro-life movement, in the shape of Gift of Life.

Perversely the organisation which dedicated itself to hounding politicians for any sign of tolerance towards reproductive rights, betrayed signs of nervousness at not having a direct adversary to face in the shape of pro-choice movement.

The next chapter in the abortion debate was opened by the wave of liberal reforms unleashed by the divorce referendum and subsequently by the introduction of civil unions under the newly-elected Labour government.

The post-divorce chapter

Seven years after the introduction of divorce Malta had overtaken most European countries, including Italy – which introduced abortion in 1979 – when it came to gay rights. But is still one of six countries which refuse abortion to women under any circumstances, even if it’s to save the woman’s life.  The only countries alongside Malta are El Salvador, the Vatican, Chile, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua.

Yet the liberalisation of mores and the inability of the once all-powerful church to turn the tide after the divorce referendum, prompted conservatives to ask whether abortion will be the next taboo to be broken.

Further confounding the issue was the attempt by conservative elements to link abortion to parallel debates on the morning-after pill and IVF.

Ironically the introduction of the morning-after pill which was introduced on the basis of scientific evidence showing that it is not abortive, may have further delayed any urgency in debating abortion, by providing yet another alternative to women faced with an unwanted potential pregnancy. The hysterical opposition to the morning-after pill betrayed an ease amongst conservatives at seeing women taking more control over their sexuality, which underlies the whole debate on reproductive rights.

Much more thorny for government could be the still ongoing debate on embryo freezing where the link with abortion may be less tenuous, at least for those who believe that life starts from conception.

Yet on this issue such concerns may well be neutralised by sympathy for childless couples that may benefit from a reform of the strict parameters set by the Embryo protection act.

Ironically this may have fulfilled the Gift of Life fantasy of having an adversary to engage and oppose, thus giving credence to their claim that abortion is an imminent threat

Another taboo broken

It is in this political atmosphere marked by liberalisation of mores, that the fourth chapter in the abortion debate has been ushered in by a clear demand by the Women’s Rights’ Foundation for legal abortion through the public health system under at least four circumstances that include if the pregnancy is endangering the woman’s life and if it was the result of rape.

Ironically this may have fulfilled the Gift of Life fantasy of having an adversary to engage and oppose, thus giving credence to their claim that abortion is an imminent threat.

Nobody can now rebut Gift of Life by saying that abortion is not even an issue because nobody is proposing it.

Yet it also threatens to bring out the worms out of the conservative woodwork, whose extremism may actually legitimise the women’s groups’ demands. In fact the latest MaltaToday survey already shows that while 83% oppose abortion on demand, a relative majority of 45% agrees with abortion in cases where the mother’s life is endangered. Coupled to this could be a spillover from the Irish referendum, which could further isolate Malta from the European mainstream.

Opposing abortion in such a circumstance could expose the irrationality of those who oppose abortion in all circumstances.

Still less than one in five agree with legal abortion in cases of rape, a statistic that speaks volumes on how abortion remains a no-go area for most Maltese.

This may well provoke a popular reaction against the same “liberal elite” evoked by Tonio Borg ten years ago. While rational and nuanced debate on the issue may well shift opinions on the subject where many have only heard only one side of the story, pushing the progressive agenda a bit too far also raises fears of a conservative backlash which has so far been avoided.

So how will Maltese political parties react to all this?

A quandary for both parties

For Labour abortion is likely to remain a no-go area at least for the time being. As things stand the party cannot ignore the fact that the vast majority of its supporters oppose abortion.

Labour will probably bank on being seen by liberals as the least conservative of the two parties by coming across as the party which is against abortion but open to debate on it. Labour could in this way benefit from the perception of the PN as the most vocal anti-abortion party, for Malta is still at a stage where the very legitimacy of having a debate on the issue is questioned. The debate could create a new divide in Maltese civil society and provide government with a distraction from other issues.

It may also be responsive to polls especially if these show changes in attitudes to abortion in any of the four cases raised by the Women’s Rights Federation.

For who would have expected the Maltese to accept gay marriage and adoptions when a Eurobarometer in 2007 showed only 7% agreeing with gay adoptions and 18% with gay marriage? Muscat himself changed his opinion on gay marriage, which he opposed when he was elected in 2008.

Still there is a fundamental difference between gay rights and abortion. For while the former is seen as a measure aimed at making a category of people happier without any detriment to anyone else, many would argue that abortion involves the taking away of a potential life.

The issue is trickier for the Nationalist Party as it could galvanise the more conservative wing of the party, alienating more moderate voices. Abortion may serve to strengthen fundamentalists and silence the party’s more liberal wing which may still be against abortion but is not necessarily against debating the issue rationally.

Under Simon Busuttil the party had broken a taboo when accepting maverick candidate Salvu Mallia as a candidate despite his pro-choice views. But with abortion becoming more of a political issue, the party may well be tempted to turn its opposition in to a mark of identity, thus excluding liberal pro-choice elements who may support the party on many other issues.

On Sunday Delia committed his party to fight to safeguard the right of the unborn child and referring to the absence of a clause on abortion in the domestic violence Bill he accused the government of “wanting to safeguard women but not the unborn.”

While it is understandable that the PN remains opposed to legal abortion, the question the party has to answer is whether it is still open to people who disagree with such a stance.

Perhaps Delia may well consider the greater openness shown by other leaders in his own political family: in Ireland Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar is campaigning to end his country’s constitutional ban on abortion, despite his adherence to the European People’s Party and Fine Gael’s Christian democratic roots.