One day after the US supreme court overturned a landmark case granting women the right to terminate a pregnancy, Roberta Metsola said on social media the European Parliament will stand up for women.

The reversal of the 50-year-old Roe v Wade case on Friday will allow American states to ban abortion.

On that same day, an American woman whose request to terminate her non-viable pregnancy was turned down by Maltese health authorities despite fears for her health, arrived safely in Spain to undergo the procedure.

Late on Saturday, Metsola tweeted: “The regression of women's rights in the US, and in other places around the globe, is a worrying trend. The European Parliament will keep standing up for women, equality and liberty.”

Before being elected president of the European Parliament, she was inundated with questions from the international press about her stance against abortion. In her responses, she insisted that as president of the EU parliament, she will take the parliament's stance. 

And once she took on the Brussels top post, she promised to sign a liberal pact guaranteeing women’s access to abortion and contraceptives in the EU.

Some of her Twitter followers on Saturday and Sunday morning reminded her of her own position on abortion, while others flagged the most recent case in Malta that made international headlines.

Among others, lawyer and former PN candidate Emma Portelli Bonnici, who is openly pro-choice, replied “and yet, Malta has the most restrictive abortion laws in the EU and in most of the world, criminalising it in all instances and having no derogation to save the life of the pregnant person, or for cases of rape or incest.

“Don’t forget about us,” she tweeted.

Times of Malta has contacted Metsola for comment but the EP president is currently travelling.

In Malta, the termination of unviable pregnancies where a heartbeat is still detected is delayed until the woman’s life is at risk because abortion on the island is illegal under all circumstances.

Delaying things could sometimes be too late, as in the case of the late Izabela from Pszczyna, Poland and Ireland’s Savita Halappanavar. Both women’s deaths brought about changes in their respective country’s legislation.

Soon after news broke of the US supreme court's decision on Friday, the World Health Organisation warned on Facebook that removing access to abortion care would put more women and girls at risk of illegal abortions.

Every year over 25 million unsafe abortions take place and up to 37,000 women die, the WHO said in a social media post, adding that restricting access to abortion did not reduce the number of abortions.

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