Watch: A Woman Was Charged After Her Doctor Reported Her For Having An Abortion, Gynaecologist Says
A woman in Malta was criminally charged after her doctor reported her for having an abortion, acclaimed activist and gynaecologist Isabel Stabile told Lovin Malta.
In an interview done just before she was awarded the Human Rights Embassy Tulip Award by the Dutch Embassy last month, Stabile was asked whether she’d heard of women in Malta who were criminally charged after their doctors reported them for having an abortion.
“Yes,” she quickly responded, adding that one case is going through courts at the moment while another happened recently after a woman was reported by her healthcare professional.
Both cases are ongoing, therefore Stabile couldn’t provide more information. However, she did explain that these cases are generally a result of “misinformation and misunderstanding” of mandatory reporting.
She stated that healthcare professionals are not obliged to report abortions. The interpretation of the regulation focusses on whether the person of interest is a risk to themselves or others, Stabile explained.
“The ‘others’ encompasses, in their view, an unborn foetus – they will call it a baby, they will call it a child. Despite the fact that a child is so-called at birth. There’s no legal persona in a child until that child is born. So, it makes no sense.”
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