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James Debono
Labour MEP John Attard Montalto (PES) has voted in favour of two pro-abortion clauses, presented as amendments by a majority of MEPs to the Coveney report.
Labour MEPs Joseph Muscat and Louis Grech (PES) voted against the two amendments. Nationalist MEPs Simon Busuttil and David Casa (EPP-ED) did not participate in this vote as they were in Malta when the vote was taken.
But more than fifty of their EPP colleagues voted together with Socialist, Green, Communist and Liberal MEPs in favour of the pro-abortion amendments.
This is the second time in a month in which a substantial minority of EPP parliamentarians have voted in favour of abortion in the European Parliament.
Amendment 8 to the Coveney report, which was approved by a majority of 330 MEPs including Attard Montalto and 50 EPP deputies, called on the European Union to ensure that post-exposure prophylaxis – the morning-after pill – and even the interruption of pregnancy, are made available immediately to all women and girls who have been raped in conflicts.
Amendment 9, which was approved by a majority of 336 MEPs including 54 EPP MEPs, calls for the “full respect of reproductive health rights” to minimise the effects of sexual violence and rape committed in conflicts.
Rape has been used systematically as a weapon in conflicts ranging from Bosnia to Darfur. In conflict areas such as Rwanda and Kosovo there have been reports of thousands of women being raped and purposely infected with HIV as part of a campaign of ‘ethnic cleansing’.
In Darfur women impregnated by enemy soldiers end up ostracised by their own communities. Access to abortion and the morning after pill is a life and death issue for women living in these countries, but still a matter of controversy in the talking shops of Europe.
jdebono@newsworksltd.com
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