Unfazed, Casa stands by 'abortion spin' in reaction to Cashman

The MEP came in for a serious telling-off by the socialist MEP, for using his report to open a scathing broadside against John Attard-Montalto and Edward Scicluna who voted for the report. Approved by a majority which included many EPP members, the Cashman report is a collection of over 67 specific proposals to facilitate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals – to which Malta, like all EU member States, in committed to reaching.

These include the financing and implementation of educational programmes in the world’s poorest countries, plans to improve co-ordination of international aid efforts, initiatives to mitigate the effects of climate change, and many other social and political considerations.

But the report also calls on member states to “reverse the worrying decline in funding for sexual and reproductive health and rights in developing countries and to support policies on voluntary family planning, safe abortion, treatment of sexually transmitted infections and the provision of reproductive health supplies consisting of life-saving drugs and contraceptives, including condoms.”

Today David Casa said that “all Maltese MEPs should maintain a clear and unequivocal position against abortion. I stand by this declaration.”

Cashman called Casa’s statement, which was made in a press conference last week to review the work of Nationalist MEPs in the last year, as “political mischief-making.”

“I have not had this reaction in any other country, in or outside the EU,” Cashman said in reaction to both Casa’s comments and a Nazzjon story. “It certainly misrepresents the intentions of those who voted in favour of the report, and also misuses the whole issue of abortion. But I don’t want to give these people the importance they don’t deserve. I’d rather praise the courage and far-sightedness of Labour MEPs Scicluna and Grech for supporting the motion instead.”

Casa latched on to Cashman’s mistake for naming Louis Grech instead of Attard-Montalto, the other Labour MEP who voted for the report. Grech was absent for the vote.

“John Attard-Montalto and Edward Scicluna voted in favour of the report containing this clause,” Casa said. “The notion that the report is any less pro-abortion just because it also contains other clauses is ridiculous. The comments made by MEP Michael Cashman where he praised the ‘courage and far-sightedness of MEPs Scicluna and Grech for supporting the motion’ are baffling – especially since Grech was absent for this vote. He was certainly not mentioned in the press conference.”

Casa’s parting shot had a faint smell of sarcasm: “I would recommend that both veteran MEP Cashman as well as this reputable publication start checking their facts more thoroughly so as to prevent the dissemination of further mistaken information.”

However, Cashman’s two-year report on global poverty was misrepresented by PN organ In-Nazzjon as a report that dealt only with ‘the killing of children before they are born’.

“You can’t look at achieving the Millennium Development Goals without also taking into account at the huge number of women who die each year as a result of unsafe abortions,” Cashman told MaltaToday. “All that we ask for is the prevention of unsafe abortions, as well as giving women rights so that the can do what they themselves want to do... and not what others want them to do.”

Casa’s outburst last Saturday also led to a statement by the Gift Of Life foundation echoing the PN line, issuing a statement to deplore the Labour MEPs’ support for the Cashman report, and to praise the Nationalist MEPs for voting against.