Health committee turns down Farrugia’s request to discuss reproductive rights

The chair of the parliamentary committee has refused to discuss a topical subject on sexual health and reproductive rights for women, because its proponent Godfrey Farrugia has seconded a private member’s bill to decriminalise abortion.

Labour MP and family doctor Silvio Grixti said Farrugia’s proposal was “undoubtedly an important subject” but since it was the subject of a private member’s bill he was seconding, that motion was now in the hands of the Clerk of the House.

Grixti said that for that reason, that motion now had to proceed according to similar motions awaiting their first reading.

The House Business Committee on Monday made no reference to the private member’s bill to decriminalise abortion. It is this committee that decides whether the bill is to be given a first reading.

Farrugia, partner of independent MP Marlene Farrugia, is backing her call to put forward for debate a private member’s bill calling for the decrminalisation of abortion, which places criminal liability on women who seek a termination, who stand to be imprisoned for up to three years.

Farrugia has also asked the chair of the socials affairs committee to place reproductive rights on the next committee agenda.

Farrugia told social affairs committee Labour MP Silvio Parnis that the bill be placed on the agenda of the next health committee meeting. “It is our obligation as Members of Parliament, and as legislators, to help foster a fair and just society, which favours lives lived with dignity and empathy to others,” Farrugia said. “It is our duty to be understanding to those needs and to listen. It is also our duty to create non-judgemental platforms for discussion on such issues.”

“Without this, we are not equipped to create and build a legislative environment that is reflective of these experiences,” Farrugia said.

The parliamentary committee is composed of Labour MPs Silvio Grixti, Silvio Parnis, Justyne Caruana and Rosianne Cutajar, and Nationalist MPs Ivan Bartolo, Maria Deguara and David Agius.

The bill Marlene Farrugia presented in the House calls for the decriminalisation of abortion and to ensure no person or medical professional is criminalised “for the choice pertaining to their medical health and/or the provision of medical assistance. Such criminalisation is discriminatory.”

The amendment Bill calls for the striking off of Article 241(1) of the Criminal Code, which outlaws the ‘procuring of a miscarriage’, which carries a prison conviction of up to three years for women.

The Bill also demands the striking off of Article 242, which holds anyone assisting the abortion to the punishment for wilful homicide or wilful bodily harm, diminished by one to two degrees; Article 242 which holds any medical professional who administers “the means whereby the miscarriage is procured” liable to imprisonment of four years; Article 243(a), which holds anyone who causes an abortion by “unskilfulness in his art of profession” liable to a fine of up to €2,329.

The Bill asks that articles 242 and 243(a) are substituted with a 10-year imprisonment for whoever carries out a forced, non-consensual abortion for non-medical reasons “by means of violence, force, deceit, bribery, threats or coercion”.