Watch: Christmas Karol: ‘You’re Introducing Abortion Days Before We Celebrate The Birth Of Jesus’
Nationalist MP Karol Aquilina accused the government of wanting to legalise abortion by stealth a few days before Christmas.
“They want to rush this bill through Parliament before Christmas, coincidentally the day we will celebrate the birth of Jesus,” Aquilina said in a fiery speech last night during a parliamentary debate on the new abortion law. “The PL government’s Christmas present to the people of Malta for 2023 is a law that will introduce abortion.”
The bill will allow doctors to terminate pregnancies if they have reason to believe the mother’s life is at risk or her health is in grave jeopardy.
However, it doesn’t provide a legal definition for the term “health”, and Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne confirmed yesterday that it will cover cases of mental health.
“The government treated this bill like a game,” Aquilina said. “First it published the first reading, then a few days’ later it held a press conference but without giving journalists the actual bill, so that everyone speaks about it without knowing what they’re speaking about.”
“Then it published the bill in Parliament, without holding a second press conference.”
He read out the names of 81 academics and journalists who signed a position paper urging the government to close any potential loopholes bill that could lead to the de facto decriminalisation of abortion.
“I urge PL MPs to speak out,” he said. “If you have a fundamentally different opinion from your leader, you are obliged to state that you disagree with the bill. Parliamentary seats come and go but what you do here will be remembered forever.”
Should Malta decriminalise abortion?
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