The government is willing to introduce amendments to ensure that the concept of allowing abortion when a woman’s health is in grave danger is not abused, Prime Minister Robert Abela said on Sunday.

Interviewed on One, Abela said the government was also willing to make it clearer that birth has to be given whenever the foetus is viable and has a chance to live.

It was also willing to make it clearer that pregnancies should go ahead even if the mother’s health was in grave danger if this was what the mother wanted.

However, it would not allow any amendments eliminating the principle of allowing the termination of a pregnancy when and if a woman’s health was in grave danger.

Parliament is currently debating an amendment to the criminal code that will free doctors and pregnant women from the threat of criminal prosecution if a pregnancy is terminated to protect a woman "suffering from a medical complication which may put her life at risk or her health in grave jeopardy".

The proposal has sparked a national debate, with critics saying the government is trying to introduce abortion by stealth and proponents saying the changes are needed to ensure legal certainty. 

“We cannot remain placid when people are suffering because legislation in Malta does not cover such circumstances,” Abela insisted on Sunday.

He noted that some of the same people who wanted action in cases of femicide did not care about safeguarding women’s health if they were pregnant.

Abela noted that although there was a practice among doctors at Mater Dei to abort the foetus if the mother’s life was in danger, they were not covered by the law when they did so and such practice exposed both the doctors and the mothers involved to criminal procedures.

The government, he said, could not leave that void in national law.  Abortion was to remain illegal but there had to be concepts safeguarding women's health.