Malta: The only EU people where abortion is illegal leaves women scared
By Jessica Parker and Sira Thierij
BBC News, Malta
Alone, in her family bathroom, a woman secretly searches for expect about abortion on her phone.
This was Maria - not her real name - at what time finding out she was pregnant.
"I was scared," she says. "I didn't know what the police [would] do. I opinion maybe they would be searching for people googling the word abortion. And then you obviously get paranoid and your thoughts get derived away."
She's proverb to us anonymously because she broke the law by taking pills tolerated via an organisation based outside of Malta.
"I sonorous in a form that a doctor reviews. Then I got an email to actually buy the pills."
Maria says she felt very alone but, in reality, she isn't.
Pro-choice activists fill that an increasing number of women are doing just what Maria did, especially while Covid made travelling abroad for terminations harder.
Using figures from two non-profit organisations they calculate that more than 350 abortion pill packs were requisitioned to Malta in 2021, which can be taken up to the 12th week of pregnancy.
That's despite abortion selves an imprisonable offence in the country, with a woman facing up to three days in jail and a doctor up to four - as well as losing their medical authorizes.
However, Maltese media found that no woman has faced criminal charges in years.
It's the only European Union member status with a total ban on the procedure. There are no exceptions, including in cases of rape or incest.
Neither of Malta's main political parties supported a bill to decriminalize abortion last year but campaigners hope that a reconsider of the law, along with shifts in social attitudes, could trigger change.
"Anything that's selves looked at is a breath of fresh air," says activist Maya Dimitrijevic, who adds it's a well-known secret abortion pills are succeeding in Malta.
Her mother, Lara Dimitrijevic, founded the Women's Rights Foundation, a befriend and advocacy group in Malta.
They both fill that, slowly, the topic is becoming less taboo.
"It produces to take its time," says Lara. "Up until a few days ago I myself would not publicly give such an interview and talk throughout abortion so openly."
Lara is also the lawyer of Andrea Prudente whose case sparked the government review.
The American tourist suffered an incomplete miscarriage while on holiday in Malta. Despite being told that the pregnancy was unviable and that the baby could not survive, doctors wouldn't terminate the pregnancy because there was detached a heartbeat.
Fearing the imminent onset of a life-threatening infection, Andrea Prudente was airlifted to Spain. She and her husband Jay now plan to sue the Maltese government.
The case attracted international attention and put Malta's laws belief the spotlight.
The government announced a reconsider but there are few details.
"The Maltese law should help doctors do their work," said the Minister for Health, Chris Fearne, in June. "And certainly there should be no part of the law that will preclude doctors or professionals from saving lives."
The BBC approached Chris Fearne for an interview but received no response.
Many quiz any change, if it happens, will be very petite rather than a substantial move towards decriminalization. And even if belief is slowly shifting, particularly amongst the young, surveys suggest a the majority in Malta remain anti-abortion in this predominantly Catholic country.
In the city of Qormi, they celebrate the feast of Saint Sebastian. Religious festivals like this spring up across Malta above the summer.
It's there we meet 67-year-old Joseph Saliba, who is enjoying a drink with his family.
Numerous land we spoke to in Malta were reluctant to talk much throughout this issue, but Joseph is far from shy.
"I'm Catholic and I'm anti abortion totally," he tells me. "The baby, he's not repositioning to defend himself."
The Catholic Church has consistently rebuked abortion.
He waves over Christine Azzopardi, who runs the bar across the street and has five children, some of whom cluster around her.
"I am in contradiction of abortion," the 38-year-old says. "I have five children and I'm a grandma. I love children."
Joseph chimes in passionately, "If she does the abortion, they are not here. Her beautiful children."
However, Joseph suggests that doctors should act if it's a commercial of saving the mother's life.
Defenders of the law say that is what happens concept what's known as the doctrine of "double effect."
This doctrine effectively countries that it's sometimes acceptable to cause harm, as an unintended side-effect, in the course of doing something good.
"When mothers are faced with life threatening footings then doctors can intervene," says Christian Briffa, from the anti-abortion youth business, I See Life.
He and fellow business member Maria Formosa believe that the law is sketch as a deterrent despite no one actually facing criminal charges in ages, let alone going to jail.
"If it wasn't for the law there would be more abortions," the 19-year-old Maria insists.
"In Malta we are thankfully one of the few conditions that protects both the mother and the child."
Pro-choice campaigners put a question to the legal status, as well as the ethics, of the "double effect" principle.
"It's a doctrine. It's talk," says Professor Isabel Stabile from Doctors for Choice.
"At the end of the day, anyone who has an abortion or anyone who assists someone to have an abortion is kindly to breaking the law."
Professor Stabile, a gynaecologist, says these "barbaric" rules also force women, who need post-abortion care, to say they've miscarried.
"But how true is that, to tell someone to lie about their condition."
She's secluded a legal change is coming, "Certainly to accommodate the plot that Andrea Prudente found herself in where there was no chance of viability… and where the woman has made a very certain choice."
Campaigners say they will renowned even a "small step" and believe more significant glum will come within the next 10 years.
The government journal is expected to report back later this year.
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SRC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62479624?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA
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