Bill 28: One man’s moral code and another man’s lack of spine

Parliament’s enactment of Bill 28 effectively introduced abortion in the very limited circumstance where a woman’s life is in danger. 

The only historical aspect about this Bill is that it ushers in the first change ever done to Malta’s otherwise blanket ban on abortion. 

Short of giving women the right to full bodily autonomy by introducing abortion – something the government has no mandate for – Bill 28 could have been much better. 

In its original format, it also allowed doctors to terminate a pregnancy if a woman’s health was in ‘grave jeopardy’. Unfortunately, in its final incarnation Bill 28 qualified the words ‘grave jeopardy’ by limiting them to circumstances that ‘may lead to death’. 

Additionally, three doctors would have to decide on a termination instead of the woman and her doctor. 

No matter how you look at Bill 28’s final make up, it is radically different from what was originally proposed last November and which was assiduously defended by Robert Abela, Chris Fearne, Jonathan Attard, Rebecca Buttigieg and other Labour MPs. 

This leader, however, is not about Bill 28 – we have written enough about its medical and health implications on women. This leader is about the process through which government ended up going down a radically different road than the one it had promised, while insisting that it committed no U-turn. 

Robert Abela was adamant on more than one occasion that his government was not going to budge on the principle that a woman’s health should be protected. He said this publicly in interviews, when questioned and unprompted during party meetings. 

When push came to shove, he did exactly the opposite; he did a U-turn. 

Now, Abela may have his reasons for finally opting for a different road. He is entitled to change his mind and see things differently. After all, that is what he is being asked to do by the environmental lobby – change his mind on how he views construction as a crucial cog in Malta’s economy. 

Abela will not be the first and last politician to change his mind. History is replete with U-turns. 

The problem here is that Abela’s U-turn remains unexplained and to add insult to injury he continues to argue that the final rendition of Bill 28 does not depart from the very same principles he assiduously defended until recently. 

It is intellectually dishonest to say that the protection of women’s health if the situation may lead to death is the same as safeguarding women’s health without qualifying it in any way. The two situations are not comparable and yet we still had the Prime Minister and others in Cabinet who fronted this Bill saying otherwise. 

The situation leaves us questioning whether Abela sleepwalked into the first version of Bill 28 not knowing its full implications only to realise when the pushback arrived – something we find hard to believe given his character trait of getting involved in the nitty gritty of legislative drafting – or else did not have the guts to withstand the conservative backlash. 

At the end of the day, Abela ended up giving his political opponents a moral victory because the final version of Bill 28 is almost similar to what some doctors had suggested initially. 

But on a more politically significant note, Abela appears to have subjected the sovereign will of a democratically elected parliament to the moral code of President George Vella. 

Malta’s democratic system does not give the president legislative powers, and neither does it give the office the right to stop or send back legislation. Indeed, the Constitution makes it incumbent on the president to assent to legislation as quickly as possible. 

The President’s Manual published by former president Ugo Mifsud Bonnici is currently the only guideline of sorts to go by in helping us interpret the Constitution. It clearly states that a president who has moral problems with a law that comes before him has only one choice - resign. The president cannot substitute parliament’s will with his own. 

Vella threatened to resign if Bill 28 in its original format came before him. It would have been unprecedented. 

Clearly, Abela was unwilling to push through with the reform when faced with this predicament and went as far as negotiating the best way out of this impasse with the president. In doing so, Abela created a precedent of his own. 

It is a pity that such an important reform, intended to safeguard women’s lives and health, had to end up scuttled because of one man’s moral code and another man’s lack of spine. Women deserve better than being sabotaged by two men and their follies. 

One final reflection is about the women in parliament. Throughout the debate that took place over the past year or so on abortion, the voices of women MPs were relatively absent, especially from the Labour benches. 

This leader believes that women MPs, especially those who understood the importance of the abortion reform, should have presented a unified front on this issue and spoke out in public about their expectations. They should have continued pushing for the original wording of the Bill and even if their arguments fell on deaf ears they should have qualified their vote in favour of the amended Bill with a declaration. 

Today, these women are sulking in the background, ruing a missed opportunity as they are made to toe the government’s line even though it leaves them uncomfortable. It is telling that the only woman to speak out was Rosianne Cutajar, who today sits as an independent MP.