I do not think that abortion is the subject of this post. However, once that there has been an engagement on the subject, may I refer one and all to a recent publication by Italian MEP Carlo Casini entitled “One of Us — The First European Citizens’ Initiative” (Edizioni Cantagalli, 2014, Siena), where one can find all the reasons why the human embryo deserves all the protection of the law just like the “person”, and why the Roman Law concept of “persona”, which was tied to a viable birth, is no longer scientifically acceptable.

By all means, don’t carry this. It is your blog and your prerogative. But the subject remains a natural sequitur to your absolutely-correct statement that human rights belong to all humans and it is a pity that you too choose to draw the line arbitrarily between humans who have rights and humans who don’t.. Incidentally, blacks, as well as Jews, as well as endless hosts of other random groups of human beings, have been defined, at law, as non-human at various points in history .. and it would be short-sighted in the extreme to assume, as legions have done before you, that we exist at a point in time where future generations will not be staggered at our legal myopia.
However, do yourself a favour, and don’t go about saying that pre-born children are not human. This is such a crassly ignorant statement that it dents your otherwise excellent credibility in the political sphere – which is your primary domain.
And, by the way, a severed human limb is not a whole human – it is a part of a human. A developing child is a whole human – until he is mashed up into various bits and pieces by your local friendly abortionist, that is.
I am certain you feel you have better things to do than carry on this discussion, so I will wish you a good day.

If the just one of the gaffes, unemployment rates increase, debacles, lies and other shameful stories had occurred under Gonzi’s watch (which never occurred BTW) all hell would have broken loose at Super One, maybe The Times, Malta Today etc.. It seems that the media have gone AWOL. Are they on Joseph’s paylist or what?

Me govern you long time.

And another question. How many of those billboards are the property of the Labour Party?

Daphne, seriously now – if they are not human, then what are they ? – Are they some sort of sub-species, upon which we are entitled to heap every abuse known to the human mind ? or are they another species altogether that somehow mutates into another at some vaguely defined moment.

Disappointing regurgitation of the standard generalisations. I look forward to debating the matter with you when the issue arises (I estimate 3 – 7 years from now)
Btw – have you checked what crime you would be charged with if you were to kill a pregnant woman ?

[Daphne – I am not going to allow you to hijack this post and subvert it into yet another fruitless, pointless, agitated discussion about abortion. Foetuses are of course human – in the same way that a severed limb is human. They are not, however, human beings until they are viable, which means at around seven months. I make the point not to suggest that before that their development may be terminated, but to correct you on the basis of status under the law and even in religion. Miscarried foetuses are not given a funeral by the religious rite, unlike babies. You will not be debating the matter with me because the matter has been done to death and Malta has abortion anyway – via clinics in Catania, a shorter distance to travel than many women have to travel in larger countries where abortion is legal. I would never have had an abortion myself and the process fills me with great sadness. However, not being a man but a woman, I also feel great sadness for the vulnerability of women in certain situations and great anger at the way women are talked about as subhuman birth canals to – ironically – emphasise the humanity of the foetus.]

[Daphne – It’s not that simple, Spock. You can’t speak of killing the day after conception, or equate that with the quite obvious killing of a foetus at eight months. Religious instruction does not speak of killing but of the termination of life, which might seem mere semantics, but isn’t. Maltese law does not speak of ‘killing’ either. Babies are babies when they take on the form of a baby. Before that they are foetuses. A day after conception they are neither. You make a mistake in speaking of babies and appealing to sentiment, because neither religious nor criminal law does that. Both are based on the philosophy that life begins at conception, and neither appeals to sentiment about killing babies. If you concentrate on appealing to sentiment, you defeat your own argument because it is impossible for anybody to become emotional about whatever is terminated by the morning-after pill.]

It is not considered to be a worse crime to kill a three year old child than a two year old simply because the former is a year older.

[Daphne – Please do not confuse or conflate arguments or shift goal-posts. We are talking here of abortion and not murder/infanticide. Even Maltese law distinguishes between the two.]

If ‘human rights devolve only on the born and not the unborn’ then the laws governing this insufficient protection of all human life should be changed to do so.

[Daphne – Malta cannot change or add to human rights unilaterally. There is a Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a European Convention on Human Rights. Human rights by definition devolve on humans – which means the born and not the unborn.]

It definitly beats the gay adoption law , and would actually save innumerable lives – by far more serious and urgent than satisfying the perceived rights of this social group .

I thrust that was a tong in chick comment.