Malta’s pro-choice and anti-abortion movements both edged into the list of top social media spenders as a fiery debate over the issue rekindled recently.
According to META’s latest social media advertising report, Malta’s pro-life and pro-choice movements both splurged on sponsoring posts on Facebook in the past three months.
They do not appear in the list of top spenders for the rest of the past 12 months.
The spend came as controversial amendments to the IVF law, which opened the door for embryo testing, were signed into law last month.
The reform was a key electoral pledge of the Labour Party but raised a debate over whether selecting which embryos can be implanted, and which cannot, could be tantamount to an abortive measure.
Once the reform was approved by MPs in June, it again hit the headlines when President George Vella, a conservative doctor known to have reservations over the matter, delayed signing it into law.
It was eventually signed nearly four weeks later by Vella’s stand-in while he was overseas.
As the country debated the implications of the reform, Doctors for Choice and the Malta Life Network Foundation both crept into the top 10 list of Facebook spenders, joining the government and other large entities.
The pro-choice doctors’ group spent €1,512 on 10 adverts, while the anti-abortion Life Network group spent a more modest €948, however this was spread across half the number of ads.
Among the sponsored and promoted content uploaded by the pro-choice group was a Times of Malta report about a Maltese couple who had to fly to the UK to terminate an unviable 17-week pregnancy.
A report by the UK’s The Guardian and a number of informational images were also sponsored by the group.
The Life Network, on the other hand, spent its money promoting content on its Facebook page titled Life Line Malta. Its sponsored material were all adverts promoting consultation services for women going through pregnancy.
“Unplanned pregnancy and feeling alone? Call our help line,” one advert reads.
Malta has a complete ban on abortion, making it one of the world’s strictest countries when it comes to accessing reproductive rights.
Earlier this year, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights called on Malta to decriminalise abortion once and for all.
Last year, then MP Marlene Farrugia tabled a private member’s bill proposing the decriminalisation of abortion, but fellow MPs shot it down.