Watch: Mental Health Used As Abortion Excuse In UK, Pro-Life Maltese Medical Student Warns
A pro-life Maltese medical student has warned that people might use mental health as an excuse to get an abortion if the new bill passes without any amendments.
During a recent debate on NET TV’s Opinjoni, Michaela Agius said she knows someone who got an abortion in the UK and was listed as suffering from mental health problems.
“She didn’t have any medical complications but she wanted an abortion. She told me that she was listed as getting an abortion for unspecified mental health reasons.”
“It is being used as an excuse, which I view as so degrading to people who really have mental health problems.”
“Malta’s bill is even more open than the UK’s.”
Doctor Joelle Azzopardi also brought up similarities between the abortion law passed by the UK in 1967 and the bill Maltese MPs are set to vote on next week.
“The wording in the UK’s law is exactly the same, allowing abortions in cases where the mother’s life is at risk or health in grievous danger. People who work at the Emergency Department know that the term ‘grievous’ is wide in scope… even a cut finger can classify as grievous. It isn’t a safety net at all.”
The UK’s 1967 Abortion Act allows abortions “if the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman”.
The UK's Abortion Law
It is similar to the proposed Maltese law, which would allow doctors to carry out abortions on women “suffering from a medical complication which may put her life at risk or her health in grave jeopardy”.
Health Minister Chris Fearne has confirmed that the legal definition of ‘health’ also encompasses mental health and has strongly pushed back at calls to exclude it.
“Whoever tries to divide healthcare into two separate categories – ‘mental health’ on one side, and ‘physical health’ on the other – as if they were two completely different things… those people are committing a grave mistake,” Fearne said in a recent interview with MaltaToday.
A group of 158 academics and doctors recently signed a statement in support of abortion in cases of “serious mental health issues”.
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