ADPD promises to address abortion in electoral manifesto: 'empathy is key'

Empathy is key in the abortion debate emphasised ADPD leader Carmel Cacopardo, while delivering the concluding address at the party’s Annual General Meeting on Saturday.

“Decriminalising abortion with respect to women is the first basic essential step which requires urgent action in Malta. It is essential as women who undergo abortion need the protection of the state and not being threatened with prosecution and persecution,” Cacopardo said, criticising the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party for stonewalling the debate.

ADPD’s annual general meeting, which was held online this year, also decided that abortion should be addressed in its forthcoming electoral manifesto and instructed its executive committee accordingly.

The Green leader also discussed the discriminatory electoral legislation on which there is a consensus between the two Parliamentary parties. Both of them, he emphasised, are ultimately responsible for the mess created. Greens fully agreed with the need for gender balance and proportionality in the electoral system. These, however, should not be discriminatory and nor should they lead to an astronomical increase in the size of Malta’s Parliament, said the party.

In his address Cacopardo also discussed the environmental impacts of roadworks and the indiscriminate destruction of trees. The abusive works in Comino carried out by the Gozo Ministry and the chopping down of trees in Attard in front of the residence of veteran environmentalist Alfred Baldacchino were referred to as the latest examples of the Transport Ministry’s “violent spree against nature.”

The General Meeting approved a new Executive Committee, which is composed as follows: Chairperson Carmel Cacopardo, Deputy Chairperson Mario Mallia and Mark Zerafa, Secretary General Ralph Cassar, Deputy Secretary General Sandra Gauci and Melissa Bagley, PRO Marcus Lauri, Treasurer Luke Caruana, International Secretary Mina Tolu and Members Duncan Bonnici, Martina Caruana, Anna Azzopardi, Donal Kelly, Jamie Mercieca, Matthew Mizzi.