Over the last few weeks, Prudente and her partner have faced countless accusations from lawyer Jason Azzopardi and the Nationalist Party that her pregnancy termination was all planned in order to bring abortion into the country.

Prudente was 16 weeks pregnant and on a holiday in Malta with her partner, when she started to experience difficulties. Soon enough, she was told by Maltese doctors that her pregnancy was unviable.

However, doctors could not remove the fetus, due to Malta’s strict abortion laws, putting Prudente’s life at risk. Prudente was then airlifted to Spain where she was then given the medical treatment she needed. 

After this ordeal, multiple theories emerged by local figures who hold a pro-life stance, accusing Prudente and her partner of purposely coming here to strike a national debate on abortion.

Prominent lawyer Jason Azzopardi recently discredited Prudente’s life-threatening situation, claiming that it was all planned.

“You really need to be trash, to conspire with people outside of Malta to bring a pregnant woman and create a controversy regarding the termination of pregnancies while pretending her life was in danger,” Azzopardi wrote on social media.  

After Azzopardi’s status, Prudente and his partner then filed a libel suit against him.

Just days later, PN leader Bernard Grech then mocked Prudente’s surname while delivering a speech on the abortion debate in parliament.

“A pregnant American woman travelled over 20 hours by plane to visit Malta for a babymoon. I had never heard of a babymoon before, but you can see that even this American woman had referred to a baby.”

“After travelling over 20 hours, she came here and wanted an abortion. However, our doctors and nurses were prudent and did their utmost to take care of both her and her baby, so she opened a court case against us.”

“She still ended up getting an abortion because she travelled to Spain by air ambulance, and that’s where her babymoon ended.

“Her surname is Prudente, but as I already said, I think the doctors were more prudent than her.”

Malta continues to make international news for all the wrong reasons, as all eyes are currently on the country to see what the next step will be in the ongoing abortion debate.

The following reading of the proposed amendment to the current abortion law is set to occur on 19th December.

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