A US woman denied a request to terminate a pregnancy in Malta has filed two libel suits against former Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi and blogger Simon Mercieca over claims that she conspired to introduce abortion to the country.

Andrea Prudente and her husband Jay Weeldreyer are taking legal action, according to their lawyer Lara Dimitrijevic.

The suit against Azzopardi centres around a Facebook post on Wednesday in which he claimed that Prudente came to Malta purposely to create a controversy over the termination of pregnancy.

He did not name her but wrote: “You have to really be trash (although they told me I can’t use this word) to conspire with third parties outside of Malta for a pregnant woman to be brought to Malta to create a controversy over the termination of a pregnancy due to a pretend danger”.

He went on to write that “this is not a hypothesis. This is not a theory. This is the objective truth which occurred.”

The libel against Mercieca centres around an article posted on his blog and titled 'How Two Americans Gamed their Child and the Maltese: The Prudente Story'.

In the suits, filed in the Magistrates' Courts, the couple claimed that the allegations of Azzopardi and Mercieca are untrue, libellous and defamatory.

In the Facebook post announcing the legal action, their lawyer also made reference to "insensitive and below the belt" comments made by Opposition Leader Bernard Grech in Parliament on Wednesday which she described as "shameful".

Andrea Prudente was airlifted from Malta to Spain after being denied a termination in July. Prudente was 16 weeks pregnant when in June she began bleeding profusely while on holiday in Malta and was told by doctors that the pregnancy was no longer viable.

In an interview with Times of Malta while he waited with his partner in hospital, Jay Weeldreyer described how much they had longed for their baby girl. "We came to Malta on a babymoon. We certainly did not come for an abortion," he said at the time.  

Jay Weeldreyer and Andrea Prudente at Mater Dei Hospital

He described their distress as they waited for the foetus to die or for her health to deteriorate to the extent that she would be in danger of dying. They said that doctors told them they could not intervene unless her life was at risk.

She was eventually medically evacuated to Spain where the pregnancy was terminated. The couple then sued the Maltese government over the ordeal.

The case cast Malta in the international spotlight, attracting the attention of global media outlets.  Days later a group of 135 doctors signed a judicial protest asking for a review of Malta's blanket ban on abortion care.

Legislative amendments were this month tabled in parliament, which would allow doctors to terminate a pregnancy when a woman’s life or health is at serious risk.

The opposition has come out against the reform saying the government does not have an electoral mandate to introduce abortion.

President George Vella has told people close to him he is prepared to resign if parliament approves the amendment to the abortion law as proposed by the government.