[WATCH] Malta’s strict anti-abortion law to get exception if woman’s health and life are at risk

Doctors will be able to terminate a pregnancy to safeguard the woman’s health and life in a legal amendment put forward by the government.

Under current circumstances doctors and the woman risk going to jail in such a circumstance. Medical professionals also risk losing their warrant.

Health Minister Chris Fearne said the proposed amendments are intended to “protect life”.

Abortion remains illegal but the proposed changes introduce an exception where termination of pregnancy is the result of a medical intervention that is needed when the woman’s health or life are at risk. The threat of jail will be removed for both the doctors and the woman in these circumstances.

Fearne said the changes will enable a pregnancy to be terminated with legal peace of mind in cases of ectopic pregnancies, situations where the woman develops a cancer and requires urgent treatment and premature rupture of a woman’s waters, among other “serious” conditions.

He insisted this proposal was not legalising abortion but addressing a particular need.

The First Reading of the amendment will be made in parliament on Monday.

Fearne was accompanied by Justice Minister Jonathan Attard and Reforms parliamentary secretary Rebecca Buttigieg.

This will be the first major change to Malta’s strict anti-abortion law, which currently makes no exceptions. Indeed, Malta is the only European state, apart from the Vatican, where abortion is illegal in all circumstances.

Attard said the legal amendment will put down in law what has been a long-standing medical practice by doctors to save a woman’s life.

“The fact that no doctor to date has ever been charged in court is not an excuse to do nothing. This will give doctors and women the legal certainty for medical decisions,” he said.

Buttigieg referred to the Andrea Prudente case earlier this year, which she said had exposed the weakness of the law.

The changes were promised by Fearne in the wake of the Prudente case who was denied an abortion despite being told her pregnancy was no longer viable.

Andrea Prudente started miscarrying while on holiday in Malta with her partner. Despite doctors telling her the pregnancy was not viable, she was denied an abortion because the foetus still had a heartbeat, putting her at risk of contracting sepsis, a serious blood  infection.

She was eventually flown out to Spain where her pregnancy was terminated.

Prudente’s case cast Malta into the international spotlight for putting the woman’s health and possibly her life on the line because of the country’s draconian laws.

Prudente has filed a constitutional case against the state, claiming her human rights were breached.

Fearne had instructed the health department to come up with legal changes that would allow doctors to provide the best care possible to women.