Watch: Joseph Muscat Urges Bodily Autonomy For Women In ‘Ten-Year Vision For Malta’
Joseph Muscat strongly hinted that Malta should legalise abortion within the next decade during his much-awaited speech to Labour supporters last weekend.
Besides his bravado over potential prison time and political digs at Roberta Metsola and his critics, the former Prime Minister laid out his own “ten-year vision for Malta under a PL government”.
“It must keep modernising Malta by turning it into a laboratory of new technologies, bring in more equality, give women the right to make their own decisions over their own bodies, give everyone the right to take the decisions they need to take, and carry out new infrastructural projects because one cannot stop progress in its tracks.”
Although Muscat didn’t specifically mention abortion, it was quite clear what he was referring to.
In his final speech as Prime Minister in 2020, Muscat pledged to campaign for more civil liberties, particularly the need for women to take decisions freely.
He later clarified that he was indeed calling for the legalisation of abortion.
“My position is that the State should not interfere and it should be solely up to the mother to decide about her pregnancy,” Muscat told Lovin Malta in 2021.
“During my time in politics and even in my last speech on leaving politics, I stated quite clearly my stand on the need to strengthen women’s rights in Malta.”
Cover photo: Alex Agius Saliba (Facebook)
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