NO BRAIN NO PAIN, AND THE FUTILITY OF HAVING AN UNINFORMED PUBLIC DEBATE Maltese Politicians from all sides are always harping on about the “need” to have a public debate about abortion. This is like having cooks discuss mechanical engineering and making decisions on laws regulating the building of cars based on the cooks’ majority decision. What legislators need to do is not have endless public discussions, as if the world has only just discovered abortion, but for them to read the relevant academic bioethics and philosophical literature (and I mean books, not lazy internet searches), understand them, decide, and legislate whichever way they are persuaded. Of course, this requires intelligent non-populist politicians who understand the issues involved and are prepared to do the right thing even if it may cost them votes. But that is another matter. Far from being conductive to anything but exasperation to those who are cognisant of the issues (both philosophical and scientif...