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Karl Schembri
They were the first government bodies to sign up for Tonio Borg’s proposed constitutional amendment against abortion, together with billiard associations and band clubs, but the people heading them had no idea what they were backing.
Joanna Drake, the chairperson of the Occupational Health and Safety Authority, told MaltaToday she did not know that her commission had signed up in favour of Borg’s petition, while Data Protection Commissioner, Paul Mifsud Cremona, admitted he had not yet read it even though he was among the first to sign the petition.
Contacted last week for the reasons behind their support for a constitutional amendment that had nothing to do with their remit, the two state-appointed chiefs had to check with their own staff what the whole issue was really about.
“I have to check with the Chief Executive because I was abroad and wasn’t involved in this,” Drake said at first when contacted last Wednesday. She called back later to say that Chief Executive Mark Gauci had decided to sign up for Borg’s petition as he felt that banning abortion was in line with occupational safety for women.
“This amendment is in line, in spirit, with a lot of other regulations protecting women,” Drake explained. “As an authority we’re concerned with protecting women at the place of work and it’s good to have this in the Constitution.”
Asked whether she felt there was any danger of women being forced to commit abortion by their employers, Drake said: “Don’t put words into my mouth. We won’t go into the abortion issue. All I’m saying is that we support this amendment because it is in the same spirit of existing occupational regulations.”
Drake would not be drawn into what relation existed work and abortion, and the protection of women on the workplace.
Equally vague was Paul Mifsud Cremona, who asked his secretary to remind him what he had signed up for when contacted by telephone.
“I haven’t read the amendment to tell you the truth,” Mifsud Cremona said. “I don’t know the exact wording, but the right to life is like the right to privacy, you know.”
Asked what he meant exactly, Mifsud Cremona said that given that the right to privacy was enshrined in the constitution, so should the right to life.
When told that the right to life was already enshrined in the constitution and that Borg’s amendment would only transpose the criminal law, Mifsud Cremona said: “In my opinion there’s nothing wrong with that. Isn’t this a question of opinions?”
Meanwhile, Chamber of Advocates President Robert Mangion would not say whether his organisation’s councils’ decision to support Borg was unanimous.
“It’s not a question of whether it’s unanimous or not,” Mangion said. “The Chamber supports this proposal because we feel that it has the aim and effect of protecting better the embryo. But we also believe that the government should also evaluate and examine other ways that may also protect human life from the moment of conception.”
karl@newsworksltd.com
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