Abortion Debate: Here’s Everything I Wish I Said, But Didn’t

Abortion remains one of Malta’s most divisive and emotionally charged issues. 20 years ago, women’s rights groups barely uttered the word in public. Today, a growing pro-choice movement regularly takes to the streets to protest what are still the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.
It’s a new public conversation, but a long-standing private grievance – and that tension resurfaces every time the topic is raised.
Malta is the only EU country with a total ban on abortion – except in rare life-threatening emergencies. Even then, three specialists must agree that the woman’s life is at risk before a termination is permitted.
Recently, Lovin Malta and FreeHour launched the first episode of Hot Seat, a new debate series that kicked off with Peppi Azzopardi – a well-known pro-life advocate – facing off against nine young people who took the opposing view. I was one of those panellists, arguing from the pro-choice side.
The episode racked up over one million views. It was heated, passionate, and fast-paced. But let’s be honest: some important points never made it into the conversation. After reflecting on what was said – and what wasn’t – I’d like to share a few thoughts I didn’t raise at the time but absolutely should have.
The abortion debate often circles around a single, emotionally loaded question: Is a foetus a human being?
It’s a deceptively simple question – and one with no universally accepted answer. Much of the divide comes down to how we define personhood – whether it begins at conception, at birth, or somewhere in between – which varies across cultures, religions, and legal systems. Some believe a foetus is merely a potential person while others are convinced of its personhood.
Many agree that personhood develops at some point during a pregnancy, yet we rarely discuss how and when that change occurs.
Public debate about the subject in Malta often misses is a key nuance that underpins abortion legislation around the world: the recognition that a pregnancy evolves. A foetus at six weeks is not the same as one at 24 – and most legal frameworks reflect that, setting different conditions and time limits depending on the stage of development.
This layered approach is common elsewhere, but rarely acknowledged in local discussions. There’s a reason we have separate terms for embryo, foetus, and baby: they reflect distinct stages of development, each with vastly different capacities for personhood and life in general. So it follows that the rights, expectations, and legal protections attached to each stage should not be identical – the same way a child isn’t the same as an adult in the eyes of the law.
This is what’s known as a hybrid view: the idea that an embryo is not a person, but a late-term foetus – once it develops the capacity for sentience – might be. Many people who support abortion access hold this view, even if they don’t know it by name. The logic is straightforward: the earlier the intervention, the less moral weight the embryo or foetus carries.
Better public understanding wouldn’t just lead to better informed views, it would also make it harder to weaponise emotionally charged images of late-term abortions to equate abortion with killing babies. These procedures are rare, heavily regulated, and almost always medically justified.
In fact, the vast majority of abortions occur in the first trimester – at or before 13 weeks. Around half of these are medical abortions, induced through medication rather than surgery. So, if your concern is that a foetus can be aborted when it’s fully or highly developed, rest assured that this is extremely rare and, in most countries, only permitted in cases of severe medical complications.
While much of the abortion debate centres on when a foetus becomes sentient or qualifies as a person – that’s only part of the equation. Abortions happen even where they’re illegal, which makes it clear that a woman’s circumstances matter too. Her health, future, and ability to raise a child all have a direct bearing on the outcome – and on the life of the child, if one is born.
When Poverty Becomes A Prison
Nowadays, women seek abortions for many reasons, but the most common is a socioeconomic one. In simple terms, many women choose to terminate a pregnancy because they cannot afford to raise a child – a reality backed by research. Studies show that women who are denied abortions face significantly higher odds of falling into poverty compared to those who receive them. And that’s not surprising: even in countries with strong welfare systems like Malta, raising a child comes with a substantial financial burden.
Maltese money coach Luca Caruana even said that baby essentials cost a family €10,000 from the moment they find out they’re pregnant until the child’s first birthday. (You can see a breakdown of costs here.)
When you place that figure within Malta’s current context – a cost of living crisis that’s made housing and everyday expenses increasingly unaffordable – the reality becomes even starker. There’s a clear contradiction at play: society acknowledges how financially strained families are, yet still expects anyone who becomes pregnant to bear the full cost of raising a child, regardless of their situation.
Criminalising abortion doesn’t address this contradiction. It doesn’t stop abortions from happening – it just prevents those who can’t afford to travel from accessing safe care, effectively turning poverty into a prison. In the end, it’s not solving any socioeconomic problems – only deepening them.
Families or women already struggling to sustain themselves are being pushed further down the poverty line by being denied an abortion. Besides the obvious mental and emotional toll that takes on a person, there are broader social consequences too. Denying abortions puts greater strain on social services and often results in children being raised in high-stress, low-income environments – conditions that can harm their long-term development.
Does that mean people struggling financially shouldn’t have children? Absolutely not. But if someone knows they cannot afford a child, they shouldn’t be forced to.
Malta’s abortion ban disproportionately harms women without financial means, access to information, or strong support systems – particularly younger women, migrants, and stateless individuals who risk legal consequences or permanent exile if they seek abortion care abroad. Such discrimination creates a two-tier system, where access depends on wealth or status – a clear violation of the principle of equality.
A common pro-life rebuttal is the “responsibility” argument: “If you’re not ready for a child, why did you get pregnant?” People have sex and it’s unrealistic to expect them not to.
Contraception can fail or people can fail to take it. But whatever the reason for unwanted pregnancy is, I don’t think a lapse in judgement and responsibility (at worst) should condemn a person to a life they don’t want.
I also firmly believe that no child should be brought up as a consequence. At the very least, a child should be brought up in an environment that wants them – that would spare everyone from lasting, life-changing trauma.
A Pregnancy With No Tomorrow
The reality of having to carry a non-viable pregnancy to term is often overlooked by the pro-life movement.
There are countless cases in which women want children, get pregnant and then find out that their child will not survive once outside of the womb. In Malta, a woman in this situation must wait for a miscarriage, a stillbirth, a threat to her own life or for the baby to die in hospital. The trauma that this inflicts is inhumane. Women have to watch their bellies swell and listen to congratulations, all the while knowing the child that they so desperately want will die, sometimes painfully.
They are physically attached to their trauma for nine long months with no moment to escape. Put yourself in that position for just a moment – how could anyone not feel empathy?
One can even argue that this amounts to psychological torture and violates the right to be free from cruel and inhuman treatment – a view supported by the UN Human Rights Committee in past rulings on denied abortion access.
Abortion is a human rights issue
At its core, abortion is not just a moral or medical question – it’s about human rights. The right to bodily autonomy, the right to privacy, health and equality are all at stake.
No one else is legally allowed to use your body without your consent – not even to save another person’s life. For example: you can’t be forced to donate a kidney, even if it would save someone else’s life. Why, then, should a pregnant person be forced to remain pregnant against their will? Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation recognises safe abortion as an essential part of healthcare – because denying abortion doesn’t reduce the demand, it just makes it more dangerous.
Even in a country like Malta, where abortion is restricted and stigma is intense, women are still having abortions. In 2024, almost 600 abortion pills were shipped to the island.
And citing the fact that bodily autonomy is not universally recognised as a fundamental right – as Peppi argued – does’t hold up. Many rights we now take for granted were once controversial: universal suffrage, equality, disability rights, freedom of religion the right to education.
Human rights are not static – they evolve through public pressure, political will, and moral progress.
There’s also a broader social cost to denying women autonomy. In countries where women have access to abortion and control over their reproductive choices, they are far more likely to reach leadership positions, pursue education, and shape their own futures. Some may argue this comes at the expense of traditional family structures – but what it really reflects is self-actualisation.
When the system prioritises producing more babies over a woman’s right to determine the course of her life, it traps generations in a loop: the boys grow up free to become anything they want, while the girls inherit the same limits their mothers faced.
You don’t have to agree with abortion. But you do have to recognise its complexity. When women go as far as risking their lives to end a pregnancy, it’s obviously not a decision made lightly. It’s a sign of desperation, and of a system that offers no support, no alternatives, and no way out.
You don’t have to choose abortion for yourself – but you are not entitled to make that choice for others. What might be an ideological stance to you could mean the difference between two wildly different lives for someone else.
Do you think abortion should be decriminalised?