And anyways if I ever wanted to have one, sicily is a 30 minute plane ride, holland gives them free to EU citizens ….the list goes on….

(Daphne – Yes, that’s exactly what the situation is. But it’s not the reason why women don’t speak up. The real reason why they don’t speak up is the same for all issues where public opinion requires itself to be felt: women in Malta are trained from birth to think that assertiveness, and voicing an opinion is a demonstration of that, makes them less appealing to men. I too consider abortion to be a private matter, and I have a pretty good idea that the constitutional amendment won’t come through to fruition. This does not obscure my awareness of how important it is to make my views known. Indeed, it is precisely because I consider abortion to be a private matter, and not a public one, that I am doing this.)

In my view abortion is wrong, whether it’s a minute old embryo or months old.

However, even as a practising Catholic one MUST acknowledge that abortion cannot be treated like X stabbing Y for example. It is different full stop!

I personally cannot see, how even in Malta, one can (or should) stop a consenting doctor from performing the procedure on a consenting person.

However lines must still be drawn.

In the U.K. for example abortions can be carried out at 24 weeks – Now today babies are surviving being born at 24 weeks. Surely that should not allowed, religious beliefs apart!

In the U.S., abortions are even carried out at 28 weeks or later, even though technically in the U.S. abortions cannot be carried out if the child can survive outside the womb, albeit with artificial aid.

Partial birth abortions are perhaps the most horrendous crimes imaginable yet continue to be carried out!

Moreover a doctor should have the right to refuse to carry out abortions!

Surely at least all should agree to a limit when the baby can start feeling pain!

(Daphne – Kind of proves my point, doesn’t it? Even the river of comments telling Gift of Life where to shove its petition, on http://www.timesofmalta.com, are mainly from men. Maltese women are overly preoccupied with how they are perceived by men, and they don’t want men to think they are ‘baby-killers’, no matter how many abortions they might have had.)

I cannot understand how women are not all in favour of abortion. I mean it’s their body we’re speaking about after all.

Since it has become the norm for nearly all commentators to this blog and to the blog of The Times to start their comment by stating that they are against abortion, as if it would be sacrilegious to discuss the topic without declaring your opposition to such abomination, I will end my comment by stating that I am in favour of abortion and would vote in favour of its introduction if ever given a chance.

This is because the Constitution is not simply a law that is more difficult to change, which is the picture GoL is trying to paint, but the supreme law. And do not be surprised if women will be prohibited from travelling on the suspicion that they are pregrant and they might try to procure an abortion abroad.

If GoL indeed cared for women and the “traumas” they suffer post-abortion they should have campaigned for something else: de-criminalising abortion for the mother. Some time back a girl attempted to abort, an attempt which failed. She changed her mind and decided she wanted to go on with the pregnancy.

Unfortunately, she had complications from the attempt, which required hospitalisation. Technically, she had committed a crime and she was reported by hospital staff. She was indicted and acquitted only thanks to a sensible magistrate.

As to the MPs who signed, GoL never published the list. It would be interesting to see how many of those who signed bit the dust in the last election.

(Daphne – Here it is, Fausto: the infamous X Case of 1992, in which a pregnant 14-year-old girl who had been raped by her neighbour was forcibly kept under police guard in Ireland when it became known that her parents planned to take her to England for an abortion. It was an international scandal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney_General_v._X)