PN fails to explain how women who get an abortion will not be imprisoned despite law

A distinction should be drawn between those seeking abortion, and those carrying it out, Nationalist Party MP Beppe Fenech Adami has said echoing the position of Bernard Grech.

“One must understand that when carrying out an abortion, you have other people involved in the process - you have people who think they can help and people who exploit women who feel they should carry out an abortion,” Fenech Adami said when asked about the PN leader's stand on abortion.

On Sunday, Grech said that while he believes the law deters someone from seeking an abortion, women who carry out the procedure should not be imprisoned. However, neither Grech nor Fenech Adami no exponent of the PN has explained the legal mechanism that would make this possible given that the law speaks of a prison sentence.

Fenech Adami said the PN believes in life from conception till natural death. He added that abortion should be approached on a cases by cases basis.

“We have to understand that the majority of women who carry out abortions, do so because of the situation they find themselves in. While we have to insist that abortion is the wrong solution to the problems they might have, we have to help these people,” he said.

Fenech Adami went on to say that it would be wrong to imprison women who have carried out an abortion, but that does not mean abortion should be decriminalised.

Earlier on Monday, President George Vella said that he would be resigning should an abortion Bill be presented to him for signature.

Asked if he would sign pro-abortion legislation under certain conditions, Vella insisted that terminating a pregnancy was always a murder. “There is no half-death, if you kill you kill, if you don’t you don’t,” he said.