Malta’s president: I would rather resign than sign abortion bill

Malta’s President George Vella. / Hamed Malekpour via Wikimedia (CC BY 4.0).

CNA Staff, May 20, 2021 / 04:30 am (CNA).

The president of Malta said this week that he would rather resign than sign a bill decriminalizing abortion.

George Vella, a medical doctor who has served as the country’s president since 2019, made the comment to NETnews on May 17.

“I will never sign a bill that involves the authorization of murder,” Vella said, according to the Times of Malta.

“I cannot stop the executive from deciding, that is up to parliament. But I do have the liberty, if I don’t agree with a bill, to resign and go home, I have no problem doing this.”

Vella was speaking after independent MP Marlene Farrugia introduced a bill in parliament May 12 seeking to decriminalize abortion, the first of its kind in the Mediterranean country.

The bill proposes the removal of three articles from Malta’s criminal code, under which anyone seeking or helping with an abortion can be sentenced to up to three years in prison, though prosecutions are uncommon.

Asked if he thought there were cases in which abortion should be permissible, the 79-year-old president said: “You have either killed or not killed, there can be no half death. I’m very clear, there are no ifs and buts.”

The two main parties in Malta, an archipelago in the central Mediterranean with a population of half a million people, have signaled their opposition to the private members’ bill.

The Labour Party said it was open to discussing decriminalization but did not want to put the matter to a parliamentary vote.

The Nationalist Party said it would never favor decriminalization because it upheld the right to life from conception till death.

In 1990, King Baudouin, Belgium’s head of state, declared that he would not sign a bill liberalizing abortion laws. On April 4 of that year, he stepped down while members of the government signed the bill into law, taking up his post again 36 hours later.

More than 90% of Malta’s population are baptized Catholics.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta said May 13 that the decriminalization of abortion would be a backward step.

“The womb of a mother is something that is dear and holy, it is there that human life can grow. Let us pray that the womb remains a place of life, not a place where killing takes place,” he said, according to the Times of Malta.


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5 Comments

  1. I immediately thought of Belgium’s King Baudouin when reading this headline. Recently, I have come across information that the king’s wife, Queen Fabiola, suffered several miscarriages and never did successfully bear children. It must have been painful for the king when his country went down the road it did. That road is even more deadly today with Belgium having some of the most “progressive” laws on euthanasia. Bravo to Malta’s president.

  2. Malta’s President George Vella and Archbishop Charles Scicluna do not have to “serenely dialogue”, consensus, discern and “move ahead cautiously” all to appease the god of faux unity among their peers. They know their ground, recognize the faces of good and evil, therefore, they can speak without hesitation by fostering truth and rejecting falsehood displayed by the evil one.

    American Politicians and American Bishops take notice, this is what real backbone looks like:

    “I will never sign a bill that involves the authorization of murder,” Vella said, according to the Times of Malta.

    Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta said May 13:

    “The womb of a mother is something that is dear and holy, it is there that human life can grow. Let us pray that the womb remains a place of life, not a place where killing takes place,” he said, according to the Times of Malta.

    It just just now occurred to me what the most likely reason is why American Bishops have been soft-balling the anti-life issue around the block for decades. It’s the money! Bishops, with their lobbying, receive over a billion federal dollars a year to fund programs for both legal and illegal immigration. They get NO monies for pro-life activities. This has been going on at least since the 1980s, with the involvement of Bernardin, O’Malley, Gregory, McCarrick, then, Frs. Lynch and Cupich to name a few.

    Presently a bishop in California has garnered over a million dollars in funds for his online ministry from the Templeton Foundation which supports Planned Parenthood to the tune of three billion dollars. It is shocking that a bishop would stoop to apply for a dirty grant from a foundation that supports the killing of baby Americans. This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how the money god has the American bishops by the throat. Cultivating the money managers for funds keeps the prelates rolling in the dough and blind to the fate of 66 million and counting persons who have been robbed of their future.

    America needs righteous bishops and politicians like Malta’s President George Vella and Archbishop Charles Scicluna. Please God!

  3. I was just looking into Malta’s “citizenship by investment” policy the other day when casting about for a country to retire in where the obligations of temporal rulers towards God are recognised. I am very happy to read this news and I pray that Malta’s leaders stay committed to this course.

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