Abela has let us down, but if civil society leads, Labour will follow

Robert Abela had a golden opportunity to go down in history as a bold reformer by introducing a timid but significant amendment to Malta’s draconian abortion law, allowing women to terminate a pregnancy in case where their physical and mental health is in “grave jeopardy”.

Instead in the face of internal and external opposition including the discomfort of the President of the Republic, he has chosen to go half-way.

Effectively he has backtracked to a “safer” political position limiting the termination of pregnancy, to cases where health complications can lead to the death of the mother. 

Instead of going down in history as a bold reformer, he has chosen the path of compromise and consensus. But it is a compromise with fundamentalists who have no empathy towards women.

He could have gone beyond this compromise simply because the original amendment was not such a big deal. Contrary to the impression given by the PN and the pro-life lobby, the amendment was strictly limited to cases of mothers facing severe health problems towards whom they showed no empathy.   

One has to recognise that the amendment as now worded goes some way in giving doctors legal certainty in extreme cases where a panel composed of three medical experts decides that not terminating the pregnancy would result in the mother’s death.

Surely the law even as originally worded was never intended to give women autonomy and control over their bodies and the new amendment reinforces this medical control over female bodies.

Politically the amendment as worded now makes it harder for the pro-life lobby to oppose it. It makes an abrogative referendum to repeal the law extremely unlikely.  But the compromise also risks emboldening this lobby which is now taking credit for stopping the original amendment. In fact, the pro-life lobby has already welcomed the amendment. 

Moreover, the new amendment leaves other women facing disabilities and severe mental health issues in the cold.   

For example, with the current amendment a woman whose pregnancy could endanger her eye sight or who is at risk of suffering prolonged depression, would still have no recourse to abortion.  It remains unclear whether the risk of suicide is covered by the current amendment.

Moreover, the reference to ‘viability’ will still force women to become ‘mothers’ at a moment in life when they are struggling with severe health conditions.  Just imagine a woman undergoing cancer treatment having to give birth simply because the foetus can already live outside her body.

But while there is logic to Abela’s political method, this back tracking comes as a very cold shower for those who expected Abela to stand up for women’s rights especially when one considers Abela’s “discomfort”, with regards to the criminalisation of a woman who faced prosecution for taking abortion pills.  

Abela had rightly pointed out that the woman was young, suffered from serious mental health problems and was in an abusive relationship with her partner, who reported her to the police after she “downed pills to stop the trauma”.

But while the original amendment partly addressed cases like this, the legal amendment as proposed now leaves women in similar situations in the cold.

Many of my friends expressed revulsion at what they saw as Abela’s hypocrisy, telling Abela to walk the talk. I disagreed.

I personally saw this admission by the PM as a step forward in a context where abortion was an absolute taboo just till a few years ago.

I never expected Abela to introduce abortion on demand but I did expect Abela to stand his ground on the amendment as originally proposed.  Now I can’t hide my disappointment.

In short Abela has defused an issue which created tensions in his own party but has in the process missed an opportunity to assert himself as a principled Mintoff-like politician ready to go that extra mile to tackle “a social injustice.”

But there is a silver lining in all this.

The lesson for civil society is that for rights to be enacted they have to fight tooth and nail, also by supporting those candidates and parties which come out clearly in favour of reproductive rights. 

Sandra Gauci’s AD surely has a golden opportunity.  Labour will not lead on this issue; it will only follow.