The government is ready to discuss ‘genuine suggestions' for amendments to the wording of a bill which will allow the termination of pregnancies when the mother’s life or health are at serious risk, Health Minister Chris Fearne said on Monday. But he dismissed calls for an amendment that would limit the coverage of the bill to women suffering serious 'physical' and hence not mental health complications. 

Speaking in parliament, Fearne said the Bill could be amended so that decisions in each case would be taken by more than one doctor, in line with the hospital’s current operating procedures.

He also suggested that the operating procedures themselves could be examined by parliament’s health committee because they defined concepts such as what constituted a grave danger to the mother’s life. 

Fearne was speaking at the opening of the debate on the controversial Bill in the House.

He observed that it had also been suggested that the Bill should be restricted to mothers having medical ‘physical’ complications, thus excluding mental conditions.

This, he said, was wrong because mental complications could be serious too and doctors should be able to treat them despite concerns about the impact on the pregnancy.

“Let us get rid of the idea that mental health issues are not a real ailment,” he said. “Pregnant women with mental health issues need to have their mind at ease that they will be able to access the treatment they need to get better. Let us think critically and be open-minded if we say that we truly want to save lives.”

At the opening of his address, Fearne insisted that this was a ‘pro-life’ Bill that was not opening the door to abortion, and ‘abortion is and will remain illegal’.

He said this was not a Bill which will give doctors a choice between saving the life of the mother or the baby. It aimed at protecting doctors who acted to save the life of the mother, because if the mother died, the baby would die too. Scenarios where a doctors’s intervention would be protected by this Bill included treatment for aggressive cancer, ectopic pregnancy or having the mother’s waters burst early, leading to a blood infection.

At present, he said, in terms of the law, when a doctor’s intervention to save the mother’s life led to the termination of a pregnancy, the doctor risked prison time.

“This is the exception we are making today, only this. Every other case outside saving the mother’s life will remain a crime.”

He said the Bill would actually further put off the introduction of abortion because it avoided deaths of pregnant women. A tragedy such as the death of a pregnant woman would greatly strengthen the hand of those who wanted the introduction of abortion, he warned.

The Nationalist Party has described the bill as opening the door to abortion and declared it will not support it. It has said, however, that it will back amendments to remove criminal action against doctors for intervention in their attempt to save the mother's life.  

The amendments come after Andrea Prudente, an American woman who was holidaying in Malta in June, was denied a request to terminate her non-viable pregnancy. Prudente had begun to bleed profusely and her waters broke at 16 weeks. Her case made global headlines after she had to be airlifted to Spain to terminate the pregnancy. 

She has since started a legal battle with the state, arguing that her human rights were breached. The Maltese government had failed in its duty to provide safety and dignity through its blanket ban on abortion, Prudente’s case argues and as a result, her life had been placed at risk as well as subjecting her to inhuman and degrading treatment. 

However, in its reply, the state has argued that Prudente’s life was never in danger while she was being treated at Mater Dei hospital, nor was she subjected to degrading and inhumane treatment.  

A Bill introducing abortion: Karol Aquilina

The first speaker for the opposition was Karol Aquilina who insisted this was a bill which was introducing abortion. 

"The government does not have a mandate to introduce abortion, in the same way as the Nationalist Party does not have a mandate to support it," he said.

"The government's Christmas gift to the nation is a law which introduces abortion."  

He hit out at the prime minister, saying he had backtracked from public statements that he would never introduce abortion and was instead backing people such as Joseph Muscat, who had spoken about greater so-called civil rights, which included abortion.   

'No justification for the Bill'

In his address Aquilina pushed back against claims that the law as it currently stands doesn’t adequately protect women and doctors. The wording of the Criminal Code was not ambiguous and the courts had always protected doctors who acted to save a mother’s life, he said.

But the worded of the new Bill would deliberately allow abortions to happen.

Aquilina explained that although it was claimed that the law had been drawn up in reaction to the Prudente case, however, the state had found that her case did not satisfy the conditions mentioned in the bill. Prudente, he said, had insisted she had a right to terminate her pregnancy and ultimately decided to go to Spain to do so.

“Even from the photo that someone took of her on the plane, you can see that her life doesn’t seem to be in danger,” he said.

He observed that in the State Advocate’s reply to Prudente’s constitutional case, it was made clear that her fundamental rights were never breached and that while she was in Maltese territory, she was never in danger of dying.

“So considering this, the justification for this bill doesn’t exist and will never exist,” Aquilina said. 

Appeal to Labour MPs

Aquilina appealed to Labour MPs to find the courage to raise the issue of this Bill again in their parliamentary group and other party organs.

"In this question of life or death, you have an obligation to stand up and speak out if you disagree," he said.

The Labour MPs should insist that this was not in their electoral programme and it was unacceptable, he said.

"Your party is supposedly against abortion, do not allow a plot concocted behind your backs to put your party down in history as the one which introduced abortion," he pleaded.

And if they did not get anywhere within their party, when the vote was taken in parliament the MPs should decide according to their conscience and beliefs, not what the party whip ordered, Aquilina said.  

 “Your seat here may come and go but the decision you make will shape our country forever,” he said.