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Malta: Both major parties confirm pro-life position on abortion

Following a nationwide campaign run by pro-life campaigners, the two main poliltical parties in Malta, the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party, have both made public commitments to ensure continued legal protection for unborn babies.

In an interview in 2020, the head of the Labour Party and Prime Minister, Robert Abela, said there would never be a referendum on abortion in Malta and that he was “against abortion in all circumstances”.

Similarly the head of the Nationalist Party, Bernard Grech, said that he was “proud that [his] party is in favour of life”, and that he had “never had a problem with swimming against the current”. 

He added: “For me the baby [should be] privileged. Because it is a life, a person, who no one can defend more so than its parents, and if one of its parents wants to [end his or her life], it seems to me that I have an obligation as a human, before a politician, that I defend that life”.

Ahead of the election, the pro-life group Life Network Foundation Malta ran a major campaign calling on parties to make their positions on abortion and euthanasia clear to the electorate by posing a series of questions to all the parties.

Their campaign, Ivotta Favur il-Hajja.org (Vote Pro Life.org), published the answers on its website and advertised the campaign on billboards across the country. Where both of the major parties came out firmly in support of the right to life of unborn children, the smaller parties gave mixed responses to the questions.

The Labour Party and the Nationalist Party, however, disagreed about euthanasia insofar as the former party called for a national discussion on the matter, whereas the latter made their opposition to euthanasia clear.

Right To Life UK spokesperson, Catherine Robinson, said: “It is encouraging to see that the two major parties, while ideologically opposed on many things, recognise the right to life of the unborn child”.

Dear reader,

You may be surprised to learn that our 24-week abortion time limit is out of line with the majority of European Union countries, where the most common time limit for abortion on demand or on broad social grounds is 12 weeks gestation.

The latest guidance from the British Association of Perinatal Medicine enables doctors to intervene to save premature babies from 22 weeks. The latest research indicates that a significant number of babies born at 22 weeks gestation can survive outside the womb, and this number increases with proactive perinatal care.

This leaves a real contradiction in British law. In one room of a hospital, doctors could be working to save a baby born alive at 23 weeks whilst, in another room of that same hospital, a doctor could perform an abortion that would end the life of a baby at the same age.

The majority of the British population support reducing the time limit. Polling has shown that 70% of British women favour a reduction in the time limit from 24 weeks to 20 weeks or below.

Please click the button below to sign the petition to the Prime Minister, asking him to do everything in his power to reduce the abortion time limit.