President Preca | Full Address and Q&A | Oxford Union

SUBSCRIBE for more speakers ► is.gd/OxfordUnion
Oxford Union on Facebook: / theoxfordunion
Oxford Union on Twitter: @OxfordUnion
Website: www.oxford-unio...
Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca is the ninth President of Malta. She previously served as the General Secretary of the Labour Party, and was the only woman to have served in senior positions of a Maltese political party. The focus of her Presidency has been on improving social inclusion, and she is known in particular for establishing The President’s Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society.
ABOUT THE OXFORD UNION SOCIETY: The Oxford Union is the world's most prestigious debating society, with an unparalleled reputation for bringing international guests and speakers to Oxford. Since 1823, the Union has been promoting debate and discussion not just in Oxford University, but across the globe.

[@noneone.............]

Her speech comes from heart. I like when She said " Human rights are no Borders and Human rights are on universe. So wise 😇. God bless you Madam of Malta.

[@educationforall1442]

Nice speach and good Q&A session

[@katbutty]

How about learning to spell before commenting.

[@woodchuck003]

Did she just say that her country was able to naturally elect women due to quotas? If they could be elected without a system that requires their presence then why do you need one?
Then in her first answer, she suggests we put limits on free speech.

[@wugy07]

I'm ashamed of how my country has been overrun by an overly progressive agenda. It's been a gradual process over many decades, but we finally reached a point where the rights of the group overrule the rights of the individual.

[@timmycamilleri.4643]

Come to Brazil

[@FilipeBrasAlmeida]

On the nonsense of the "rights of embryos" (around the 52 minute mark): A mistreated child may be removed from their negligent parents simply because they are individuals who can fully and freely develop their personalities with better care. An embryo, on the other hand, cannot survive outside the womb. There is a uni-directional dependency that grants a natural and unavoidable responsibility and choice, upon the woman. One that she cannot reasonably be legally punished for making, whichever way she makes it.
I'm surprised this distinction still has to be made this late in the game.

[@Forzalnter1996]

But if you are pro Life, you believe an embryo has the same dignity of any other human being and destroying it is equivalent to the intentional killing of a person (i.e. murder).

[@Forzalnter1996]

And as for the dependency argument, say you are old and with no money to put your partner in a hospice or you have a seriously disabled relative, there is a moral case for you to be compelled to care for them. It is basic human compassion.
Take this as an analogy: you wake up tomorrow and you find yourself connected to a famous scientist. They need to stay connected to you to use your kidneys for 9 months, then you will be able to detach yourself because they would have found a donor. But in the meantime, if you detach yourself they will die.
Now, this is just an analogy because:
- you did not choose to attach yourself to them while in most pregnancies (apart from rape) people know that engaging in a sexual activity even protected carries a minimal chance of pregnancy.
- you are completely constrained to the individual whereas in a pregnancy people mantain a good degree of personal autonomy until 7/8 months into it, generally.
Would you say that there is a moral case for you to stay attached to the other person? Of course you can choose to, but would you really detach yourself knowing the other person would die instantaneously?

[@FilipeBrasAlmeida]

​@@Forzalnter1996
Naturally. And if, for instance, I'd happen to be an astrologer, I would believe that distant celestial objects exert influence upon human affairs. We're all equally entitled to our individual beliefs; however, once we begin to freely and openly discuss them with others, within the scope of establishing the normative thresholds within a democratic legal framework, our beliefs acquire validity to the extent that they have a purchase on reality.
I find it to be rather indicative that wherever the abortion debate has been had in free, open, and developed societies, the legal approach to abortion has shifted, slowly, steadily, but without fail, towards making abortion safe, legal, and rare. Portugal is a prime example, where the numbers of abortions have dropped dramatically since decriminalization.
To sum up the reality of the issue, is to say that however you may feel about terminating a pregnancy, for instance, within the first 12 weeks, there doesn't seem to be any good reason to criminalize and convict the woman for it, since It demonstrably does nothing to ameliorate nor prevent it.
All the while, the termination of a an early embryo, or say, a blastocyst, has never been equated to person-hood. Not even by Catholics. There are no funerals for embryos. The moral distinctions to be made between natural embryonic development and living persons are obvious and legion.

[@Forzalnter1996]

@@FilipeBrasAlmeida An embryo contains all the genetic material necessary to human development and has a complexity that we still don't quite understand, the level of organisation in the blastocyst is remarkable, everything is precisely regulated, and the reason why Catholic scholars such as Thomas Aquinas didn't believe life began at conception but at a certain point was that... nobody knew what conception actually entailed since DNA was not a thing 700+ years ago.
Can you provide evidence to support your statement? For instance, there is no evidence that widely available contraception actually diminished the number of unplanned pregnancies and the number of abortions.

[@FilipeBrasAlmeida]

@@Forzalnter1996 Sure. For which statement?

[@alexanderjacobsen7382]

This is the woman who let Daphne Caruana Galizia be bombed under her tenure for the thoughts on her blog. Brava, sinjura. That 'coward' can't go back to her family, and there still isn't a public inquiry. How can you speak like this?!

[@cudaman2formula874]

Oh yeah nothing about the negative impact on Europe