Malta’s Abortion Amendments Make It Impossible To Get One Unless On Death’s Door, Activists Say
The new amendments to the abortion law proposal will make terminating pregnancy “impossible” unless patients are knocking at death’s door, according to Doctors For Choice Malta.
New regulations will grant access to abortion in Malta – a historic step forward.
However, the doctors warned that the amendments to the original text for Bill No. 28 do not guarantee that women will not die due to pregnancy complications, because of all the hurdles in the way of termination.
“After they have passed a law with so many conditions that make it impractical to use in most situations, doctors will not be able to overcome all these barriers and act until the very the last minute, by which time it may be too late to save the woman,” they wrote in a statement.
The group laid down several reasons why the laws don’t protect women.
The original version of Bill 28 stated that a doctor could legally terminate a pregnancy when there is a medical complication that puts the health of a pregnant woman in grave jeopardy. Now, the law says that pregnancy can only be terminated if the woman’s health is in grave jeopardy which can lead to death.
“Despite government promises that they would not compromise on this principle, they went ahead and did exactly that: compromise on this principle,” D4C said.
“In practice, this means that unless there is a risk of death, a pregnancy cannot be terminated. And despite the government saying this could be interpreted liberally, in practice Maltese gynaecologists have already said that a woman suffering ruptured membranes in early pregnancy will not qualify for a termination of pregnancy under the new law, until she gets a life-threatening infection.”
This means a case like that of Andrea Prudente could soon happen again and the next woman to have ruptured membranes in Malta may lose her life.
Abortion in Malta will now also require three consultants on a specialist registrar to authorise, a complex system which may lead to delays in life-or-death matters that are timely.
“So once a risk to death is identified unless death is happening at that point, the doctor has to obtain permission from three consultants (or specialists on the Medical Council register). As consultant gynaecologist, Mark Sant said in an interview with the Sunday Times of Malta, this is a complex mechanism that may introduce delays. And in these situations, delays may mean loss of life.
Needing three specialists to approve an abortion means that “no house officers, no specialist trainees, and no registrars – which are by far the more available grades of doctor in hospital” help with decision-making, so the approval on such a timely decision would depend on the specialists’ availability.
“Even after a risk of death is identified, and even after three consultants become available, there are still several other conditions that have to be met.”
The woman, they continued, has to be in a “licensed hospital,” the consultants must verify that the termination is necessary, and the consultants must verify that the fetus is not yet of a viable age.
“When one looks at all these conditions together, it is easy to see how this law will make it almost impossible for women to access a termination of pregnancy until they are literally at death’s door,” D4C added, warning that the government is not being honest when it says under the new law doctors can act before a woman is on death’s door.
“After they have passed a law with so many conditions that make it impractical to use in most situations, doctors will not be able to overcome all these barriers and act until the very the last minute, by which time it may be too late to save the woman.”
Cover: Doctors for Choice and other NGOs oppose abortion amendments presented in Parliament.
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