Prioritise mental health and decriminalise abortion - ADPD
Laws relating to medical interventions during pregnancy need to be clarified
Mental health should be prioritized and abortion needs to be decriminalised Malta’s Green Party said on Saturday.
Addressing a press conference in Valletta, ADPD candidate Dr Anthony Buttigieg said there was an exponential increase in mental health conditions and the current services in place were unable to meet the community’s needs.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic we were suffering another pandemic, that of mental health. This has resulted in increased mental health problems within the community,” Buttigieg said.
He pointed out that more resources were needed for mental health, and there was an urgent need for Monte Carmeli to be replaced by a new hospital which treated patients with dignity equipped with modern facilities for acute mental health cases.
He added that the Richmond Foundation and other NGOs providing a sterling service when it comes to mental health within the community needed more assistance, and shelters should be set up in every town and village.
Abortion decriminalised
ADPD leader Carmel Cacopardo said abortion needed to be decriminalised to ensure women who opt to have an abortion are not treated as criminal.
“A woman who goes through an abortion needs our support. It is imperative that society shows empathy and not persecution,” stressed Cacopardo.
“Removing from the Criminal Code the threat of criminal action by the state, even if this has rarely been used would, even on its own signal the willingness of our society to be of help to all those women who face difficulties during pregnancies,” he said.
He added that laws relating medical interventions allowed in the case of pregnancy complications urgently needed to be clarified.
“The law is not clear at all. ADPD is proposing that this is addressed through clear amendments so that it is clear as to the medical interventions permissible should complications developing during pregnancy be threatening to a woman’s life,” Cacopardo said.
He underlined that even though no woman has died in Malta as a result of complications arising during pregnancy, there have been a number of cases where this was very close to happening.
The only publicly documented case refers to a Maltese-Canadian woman who had to be evacuated to a clinic in Paris with an air ambulance, following intervention refusal at Mater Dei in 2019, he said.
“It is simply not acceptable that in a supposedly civilized country women are brought to death’s door,” said Cacopardo.
He explained there was an urgnet need for better sexual and reproductive health education at all levels of our educational system.
This would lead to instilling a greater sense of responsibility in one and all, he concluded.