Together Gibraltar to campaign for referendum on abortion

The Together Gibraltar movement will campaign for a referendum on the issue of abortion.

The movement, which was founded my Independent MP Marlene Hassan Nahon, decided to push for the referendum after a vote following a meeting last night.

A total of 30 members of Together Gibraltar participated in the vote, including some who voted online. Of those, 82% voted in favour of the motion for a referendum and 18% voted against.

“We will be engaging with other social actors and all sectors of civil society in this pursuit,” the group said in a statement.

“The movement is preparing petitions that we will distribute to collate signatures from the wider community in support of a consultative referendum.”

“We would like to remind the public that engaging the community in political decision making is at the core of our mission, as we believe that bridging the gap between people and power is the best cure for disenfranchisement and populism.”

“A consultative referendum will also create a very healthy precedent of organised civil society having an impact on the political debate.”

Together Gibraltar said many of its members had already expressed their support for pro-choice reproductive legislation.

But is said its commitment to open democracy overrode all other agendas.

It added that any change on such a sensitive issue would benefit from a wide social consensus, and that such consensus could be better achieved via open, respectful dialogue of the type that a consultative referendum campaign would generate.

“We invite the opposition party, who have already expressed the support of a hypothetical referendum on this issue, to join us in this campaign to bring Gibraltar in line with 21st century western thinking,” Together Gibraltar added.

“We will inform the public of how, where and when to sign the petition, and will be launching an informative media campaign shortly.”