Skip to content

Voices for freedom and choice

Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on linkedin
LinkedIn

Author: Dr Alexander Clayman

Dr Alexander Clayman

Abortion is a criminal offence in Malta. This means Maltese women who wish to end their pregnancy have severely limited choices. Those more affluent can pay to terminate their pregnancy abroad. Those who do not have the money can either continue the pregnancy against their will or terminate locally under unsafe conditions, risking both their health and freedom. 

Any woman who undertakes an abortion potentially faces three years in jail. Anybody who assists, such as a doctor, could also be sentenced to four years behind bars. This flies in the face of best medical practice which states that safe abortion services should be accessible to women who need them. 

A few weeks ago a group of doctors, including myself, came together to set up Doctors for Choice Malta in order to advocate for sexual and reproductive health. This includes comprehensive sex education (NOT abstinence-only education) and access to free contraception (condoms, pills, and intrauterine devices). Increased use of contraception alone results in fewer unwanted pregnancies and subsequent abortions. Putting contraceptives in the hands of comprehensively sex-educated individuals can do even more. This said, abortion still needs to be available to those people who need it. 

As a doctor, I feel I have a duty to use my knowledge and skills to better my community’s health. Together with Doctors for Choice, we are basing our efforts not on opinions or morality, but on years of medical and sociological research which shows that sex education, contraception, and accessible abortions make a society healthier. 

The irony was not lost on me when comments accusing me of being a baby-killing-mad-axe-murderer-who-doesn’t-understand-what-a-real-doctor-is started rolling in. Luckily for me, forewarned is forearmed, and the negativity failed to penetrate very deep. 

What did strike me was the contrast between the way people communicate their derision and their support. Abusive comments come in fast, prominent, and loud. Supportive comments are usually sent in private. At present, it’s clearly very easy to be openly anti-choice, but very difficult to be openly pro-choice. 

To those afraid to raise their voice and speak the truth, I say: whatever dogma, tradition, or a battalion of angry keyboard lieutenants might tell us, those who advocate for reproductive choice have nothing to be ashamed of. We are on the right side of history. 

Read more: Marston, C., & Cleland, J. (2003). Relationships between Contraception and Abortion: A Review of the Evidence. International Family Planning Perspectives, 29(1), 6. https://doi.org/10.2307/3180995

Stanger-Hall, K. F., & Hall, D. W. (2011). Abstinence-Only Education and Teen Pregnancy Rates: Why We Need Comprehensive Sex Education in the U.S. PLoS ONE, 6(10), e24658. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0024658

Author

More to Explore

Fostering Creativity and Community: The ART Connect Project at the University of Malta Library

The Library is, in many ways, the beating heart of the University of Malta (UM). The pulse of intellectual life can be felt most profoundly amongst the quiet shelves lined with books and the many students and academics lining the Library’s work desks with their noses deep in their projects. In this sense, the Library is also symbolic of the University’s overall health and vitality, so it is important to balance serious work with serious play.

The evolution of the ART Connect Project has been a journey of dedication and transformation. Inspired by the vision of new librarians and a desire to revamp the Library’s decor, what was once a seed of an idea has now matured into a vibrant platform for artistic expression, collaboration, and community building.

The ART Connect Project aims to connect people through creativity, foster collaboration, and transform spaces, inviting artists and art enthusiasts to celebrate the power of art.

Meeting Challenges Halfway at the Malta Book Festival 2023

Malta boasts 58 registered publishing entities, hosting hundreds of authors writing books across a wide swathe of genres and formats. These numbers emerge from an NSO survey into the book industry, conducted on the basis of the year 2021. Effectively, we could say that there are ‘more authors than churches’ in Malta, with over 700 authors populating the National Book Council’s database.

This hints at a varied industry, the stakeholders of which all fall under the remit of the National Book Council, which seeks to assist, support, and represent Maltese authors and publishers, as well as related industry stakeholders such as translators and illustrators. While the Maltese context does have its own particularities, neither is it immune to the industry’s wider, global realities, a case in point being the price hike on paper caused by the war in Ukraine, which continues to be felt across the board. Maltese publishers must also bear the brunt of this unfortunate phenomenon.

The National Book Council continues to advocate for increased governmental support to aid publishers, whether in this particular challenge or others, and it also offers direct financial aid through the Malta Book Fund, which last year issued a grand total of €120,000 to various industry stakeholders, targeting projects of high cultural value which may not have a straightforward route to market success.

But while some challenges may be met halfway through financial incentives, others require a systemic — or cultural — shift in attitude from all parties involved, which takes a certain degree of workshopping to be borne out. The slow uptake of ebooks bears pondering (the NSO survey saw 146 new ebooks issued in Malta in 2021, contrasted with printed counterparts of 418 in the same year), as does the worryingly high number of authors published without adequate contracts in place.

Maximising Solar Panel Efficiency: The DustPV Project

The DustPV project, led by Prof. Ing. Joseph Micallef, aims to determine the optimal timing for cleaning solar panels using innovative sensor technology and weather data analysis. By addressing the challenges of dust accumulation on photovoltaic panels, the project seeks to enhance solar panel performance and contribute to Malta’s renewable energy goals.

Comments are closed for this article!