Malta drafts law allowing abortion if mother’s life or health at risk
Malta’s government has published a draft law that would ease the country’s strict abortion laws by allowing the termination of pregnancies if the mother’s life or health are at serious risk.
The proposed change in the law follows an outcry over the treatment of a pregnant American tourist in June, a case that sparked headlines worldwide.
The end to the last blanket abortion ban in the EU was hailed by Maltese activists as a long-awaited victory for women’s rights – albeit a move that did not go far enough.
“This is a much-needed step forward for women in Malta,” said activist and human rights lawyer Desiree Attard.
Currently, doctors who administer abortions can be jailed for up to four years and banned from practising medicine for life.
But under the new bill – which still needs to be debated by members of parliament – a termination will be legal if it is “aimed at protecting the health of a pregnant woman suffering from a medical complication which may put her life at risk or her health in grave jeopardy”.
“For the first time, we have a legislative proposal that recognises how archaic our current legal framework is, and seeks to rectify it, even if ever so slightly,” Attard said. While the bill was “a step in the right direction”, it was “far from enough” and the government needs to “recognise that reproductive rights are fundamental rights”, she added.
Doctor Isabel Stabile, an activist with Doctors for Choice, said the amendments fell short. “There will still not be any provision to terminate pregnancies in cases of rape or incest, or in cases of foetal anomaly,” she told AFP.
It will also not be possible to choose to have an abortion, despite the fact that “up to 400 people in Malta a year” order abortion pills online for use at home, she added.
Stabile said vulnerable people would “continue to be criminalised”, while those who can afford to travel to clinics elsewhere in Europe would continue to do so.
The spotlight was turned on abortion, a thorny issue in Catholic-majority Malta, after US tourist Andrea Prudente suffered a partial miscarriage while on holiday.
The foetus was given no chance of survival. But because it still had a heartbeat, she was denied an abortion despite fears that she could contract a lifethreatening infection.
In the end, she and her partner flew to Spain, where she was given an abortion, but not before the case sparked headlines around the world and protests in Malta.
In the wake of her case, more than 130 doctors in Malta filed a legal protest against the blanket abortion ban, warning that it represented an obstacle to proper medical care.