‘If You Love Or Are A Woman, Don’t Go To Malta’: US Couple Speak Out After Abortion Ordeal Finally Ends
An American couple at the centre of an internationally covered pregnancy trauma and the subsequent lack of access to medical interventions while holidaying in Malta have spoken out about their ordeal, giving a warning to people thinking of travelling to the island.
“If you know a woman, if you love a woman, if you ever plan on knowing or loving a woman, or if you are a woman – don’t go to Malta,” Jay Weeldreyer, the partner of Andrea Prudente, said in an interview with UK’s The Guardian.
The couple, who were medically evacuated from Mater Dei Hospital to Mallorca, Spain, to undergo a medical intervention to ensure Prudente was not at medical risk following her miscarriage, have shed more light on what went through their minds as they were being denied access to a safe abortion on the island.
While in Malta, and being told to wait until their foetus’ heartbeat stops, Prudente was offered grief counselling, which she described as “like sending in a PTSD counsellor when the battle is still going on”.
When her story went public, they were contacted by local anti-abortion activists via social media, who urged the couple not to intervene to complete the miscarriage as “miracles could happen”.
Unimpressed, Weeldreyer said: “We have a relationship with medicine, not with miracles.”
Andrea Prudente
As the couple finally got the go ahead from their insurance company – who sent a private jet with a surgeon on board from Belgium – a doctor working at Mater Dei who also works in London told them had they been in the UK, he would have stepped in as soon as her ultrasound results has been seen.
The couple are now preparing to return to the US – however, in a twist of fate, on the exact same day that the pair were being flown to Mallorca and the world was watching Malta and its strict abortion laws, the US overturned the historic Roe v Wade, removing the right for American women to terminate their pregnancy in the US.
“The timing is nuts,” Prudente said. “It’s so regressive.”
As Prudente prepares to work through the “emotional wreckage” the pair went through on what was supposed to be a relaxing “babymoon” in Malta, she knows her story can shed light on the reality women face in these circumstances.
“We see ourselves as accidentally in this position to influence – just by being honest and sharing our story.”
What do you make of the couple’s thoughts on Malta after their experience?
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