Jason Azzopardi sued over conspiracy that Prudente contrived Malta abortion

The American traveller denied a termination for her unviable pregnancy in Malta, has filed two defamation lawsuits against former Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi and the right-wing academic Simon Mercieca.

Both claimed that Andrea Prudente and husband Jay Weeldreyer contrived their holiday in Malta as a stunt so that her failed pregnancy would create a scandal over Malta’s abortion ban.

The lawsuit was filed by Women’s Rights Foundation activist and lawyer Dr Lara Dimitrijevic.

The legal action comes a day after a debate on the amendment to Malta’s Criminal Code to allow doctors to carry out a termination when a pregnancy poses a danger to the mother’s life.

Dimitrijevic took to task Opposition leader Bernarch Grech’s statement in parliament in which he lampooned Prudente’s last name by lauding the “prudence” of the doctors who refused to carry out the termination. “There is no hiding behind parliamentary privilege. Shame on you and the very least you can do, if you have a shred of human decency, is to apologise for your insensitivity and below the belt comments. Or, you can do as you previous leader shouted on numerous occasions, ‘Barra’. You are not worth a seat in parliament.”

Prudente was 16 weeks pregnant while on holiday in Malta when she started to miscarry. Doctors at Mater Dei told her the pregnancy was no longer viable but would not terminate it because the foetus still had a beating heart. Prudente’s life was not on the line but she risked contracting sepsis, a serious blood infection that is potentially fatal. Prudente was eventually flown out of Malta to Spain where the pregnancy was terminated.

But Azzopardi, now a former MP who has resigned from the PN, claimed Prudente was brought to Malta on purpose to instigate the abortion debate, even doubting whether Prudente’s very real medical complications were true. “You have to be truly trash to connive with foreign third parties so that a pregnant woman is brought to Malta to instigate a controversy over the termination of a pregnancy by pretending she was in danger,” Azzopardi alleged.

Azzopardi has suggested Prudente’s state was all pretence and even went one step further, insisting his belief is the truth. “This is not a hypothesis, not a theory. This is the objective and factual truth of what happened,” he said, urging those like him opposed to abortion to stop being naïve.

Azzopardi’s incredible assertion was immediately shot down by pro-choice activist Andrea Dibben, who accused him of lying.

Dibben wrote: “Other activists, volunteers and myself lived every hour the suffering that Andrea and Jay (her partner) passed through and spent nights not sleeping until she was safe in Spain. We appealed and fought for doctors to intervene because we could not bear see her in that state. It’s good that this woman is in America and not seeing how you are trying to ridicule her. How can we expect Maltese women who pass through similar circumstances to speak up?”

She challenged Azzopardi to say who he was referring to when using the word ‘trash’. “If you are man enough tell us... so that we can meet in court, where you will have to prove what you are saying,” Dibben hit back.