Din hija l-istorja vera ta’ mara li esperjenzat tqala mhux pjanata u li ġiet megħjuna minn Life Line Malta.
Life Line is the support and care arm of Life Network Foundation
This is the real story of a young woman who was in a crisis pregnancy situation. She received all the help needed from Life Line Malta. Listen to her touching story!
Life Line Malta is the support & care arm of Life Network Foundation
Din hija l-istorja ta’ mara li esperjenzat tqala mhux pjanata u li llum il-ġurnata tghin nisa ohra li għaddejjin mill-listess sitwazzjoni simili taghha.
Life Line Malta is the support and care arm of Life Network Foundation
The University Għaqda Studenti tal-Liġi has come out strongly in favour of decriminalisation of abortion in Malta. No one disputes their fundamental right to hold and spread opinions, all the more so when the opinions are necessarily subjective and often more emotionally than rationally based. Perhaps they could have been more cautious where angels fear to tread.
I propose to deal briefly with some current legal misconceptions, avoiding as much as possible the equally relevant minefields of science, ethics, cultural traditions and religious belief.
So, exclusively law, and starting with fundamental law. It is often repeated that a woman’s right to abortion is her fundamental human right. Is it? Who says so?
In Europe there is an empirical but universally accepted standard as to what is a fundamental human right and what is not. In brief, fundamental human rights are only those which the European Court of Human Rights says are fundamental human rights (though domestic law is entitled to add to the list).
The closest it came was to rule that, if domestic legislation allowed abortion, then it would be a violation of a women’s rights to deny her, directly or indirectly, that option. Never has the supreme court of Europe ruled that a state must legalise abortion. Every sovereign state remains free to legalise abortion, to decriminalise it in given circumstances or to criminalise it.
A look at current Maltese law dismisses the fable that a foetus is merely “a clump of cells”, the same way a beauty-spot, a bunion or a blister is. Not at all. The very words of the Criminal Code negate this.
Abortion, according to the code (Article 241), occurs when anyone causes the miscarriage of “a woman with child”. Not the miscarriage of “a woman with a clump of cells”. A foetus, however early, is by Maltese law considered to be a child, with some of the rights and the expectations of a child – among them, the right not to be quashed before birth.
This the Criminal Code repeats in the notion of grievous bodily harm. The law qualifies a harm as grievous when, if “committed on a woman with child, it causes miscarriage” (Article 218). A harm is not grievous if committed on a woman with “a clump of cells”. It escalates in gravity when a woman is “with child”.
Maltese law dismisses the fable that a foetus is merely “a clump of cells”. Above is an illustration of an early-stage embryo. Photo: Sciepro/Shutterstock.comWhen protecting the right to life, for the purposes of establishing criminal guilt, Maltese law does not differentiate between a foetus and a born child. It safeguards them equally, however early the pregnancy. There is only a difference in the punishment, not in the criminal guilt.
Though not specified in the written law of procedure, in practice our traditional system of protection under the law has adopted the institute of ‘curator of the womb’ known by its old-style name of curatore al ventre. When a pregnant married woman is widowed, the court may, at the request of any interested person, appoint a curator to safeguard the interests of the unborn child.
And, before capital punishment was abolished in Malta in 2000, it was official government policy to commute the death penalty of any woman who was pregnant at the time of sentencing or of execution. Did the state care about not sending to death a woman with a clump of cells, or was it concerned with not terminating the autonomous life of a separate being who had not been convicted of any crime?
On the horns of a dilemma, the state preferred that a guilty pregnant woman should escape just retribution, rather than that an innocent foetus should have his or her life terminated. I am now being told that the state was not choosing between justice, on one hand, and an unborn child on the other. Oh no, the state was officially opting for injustice to society in order to save… a clump of cells.
In prohibiting the execution of pregnant women, Malta was following the principle now enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: “Sentence of death shall not be carried out on pregnant women” (Article 6). The life of a criminal mother is spared, obviously not to upset a clump of cells.
I understand that a purely ‘legal’ configuration of the abortion narrative informs only a part of the debate and that powerful arguments militate on either side of the fence. But it is simplistic to reduce complex and contentious issues to black or white.
There is excellent material in this Position Paper, though it is massively one-sided in problems so seeped in controversy. I wished the Għaqda Studenti tal-Liġi, whose function it is to promote the study of law, had been more balanced and nuanced.
Giovanni Bonello, ex-judge at the European Court of Human Rights
This is www.timesofmalta.com opinion piece
Ref: https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/abortion-womb-or-tomb-giovanni-bonello.841637
Poland was recently at loggerheads with the European Union. It was objecting to a new mechanism which permitted the withdrawal of EU funds to countries that do not abide by the rule of law.
Thankfully, Poland finally yielded and now the mechanism, with certain safeguards, will be launched. A country cannot abuse of its sovereignty in rule of law matters while belonging to the Union, benefitting from its membership but ignoring its values.
This mechanism could be a lifesaver for any country whose government tries to cross the red lines of what it is allowed to do.
What is, however, perturbing is that in the midst of this crisis, the European Parliament passed a controversial, even though non-binding, resolution which condemned Poland because its Constitutional Court has ruled that the right to life protects even unborn children who are physically or mentally deformed or disabled.
The charge against Poland was that “many pregnant women who have been informed that there is a high probability of the foetus having a severe and irreversible abnormality or an incurable disease have had their access to legal abortion restricted”.
It then “strongly condemned the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling and the setback to women’s sexual and reproductive rights in Poland”. It also affirmed that “the ruling puts women’s health and lives at risk”. It even assumed that wilful termination of a pregnancy is a fundamental right although no European instrument of law recognises such right.
This resolution, even though not binding, is astounding. Since when is the apex court of an EU member state subject to criticism for its judgments on matters which are outside the powers and jurisdiction of the EU organs such as abortion?
In fact, European commissioners have repeatedly made it clear that, according to the principle of subsidiarity, abortion and euthanasia are matters to be dealt with by the member states themselves. Some allow them. Others, like Poland and Malta, are vehemently against.
The government cannot cajole the Catholic vote on the one hand and allow its pundits and MEPs to encourage the introduction of abortion in Malta– Tonio Borg
This intrusion on the subsidiarity principle and the margin of appreciation, which each member state enjoys in such matters, was conveniently forgotten by the European Parliament. It is appropriate to recall that, during the negotiations leading to Malta’s accession to the Union, the Fenech Adami government had managed to include a protocol in the Treaty of Accession to the effect that, even though the current legal position is that the EU cannot interfere in such matters as abortion, Malta retained the right that, should the rules change, it remains the arbiter to decide whether to introduce the wilful termination of a woman’ pregnancy in Maltese law.
Now for the rules to change, one needs the unanimous decision of the member states. Yet, to be doubly sure, a Nationalist government insisted on including such a protocol.
It is sad to note that out of six Maltese MEPs, only two, namely Nationalist MEPs Roberta Metsola and David Casa, voted against the EP resolution. Even though the official position of the current Labour government, as expressed by the prime minister, is that the current administration is against the introduction of abortion, two Labour MEPs, in Pilate-like fashion, washed their hands of the issue and actually abstained on a resolution condemning a country for restricting abortion.
Another Labour MEP did not turn up for the vote. But, worse than that, one Labour MEP, Cyrus Engerer, voted in favour. In his considered opinion, the selection of healthy unborn children and the elimination of the unhealthy ones in their mother’ womb could actually be even considered as a human right, an evil that could be one day be taken as laudable and morally right.
He stated that “the ruling of October 22 by Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal to make abortion illegal in cases involving severe and irreversible foetal defects “puts women’s health and lives at risk”,
Besides, the inertia, and, in one case, the outright approval, regarding the resolution by Labour MEPs has created a dangerous precedent for Malta whose laws are in line with the ruling of the Polish Constitutional Court.
We inevitably shudder when we read about the extermination of disabled, deformed or abnormal human beings during the last World War by totalitarian regimes in pursuit of the superior race doctrine. Still, it seems that some of us find nothing objectionable if such human beings are exterminated before they are born. They style themselves pro-choice but the only persons who have no choice at all are the unborn.
This is similar to a recent boast by one member state that practically there were no longer any children born with Down Syndrome in its territory, not because a cure was found for such condition but because all unborn children showing signs of such condition were eliminated before having the chance of being born!
It is useless paying only lip service to the right to life. The right to life needs to be defended every day. The government cannot cajole the Catholic vote on the one hand and allow its pundits and MEPs to encourage the introduction of abortion in Malta.
Tonio Borg is former European Commissioner.
Ref: This is a timesofmalta.com opinion piece
https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/an-ominous-resolution-tonio-borg.839705#.X977ob14ooQ.whatsapp
I am caught between two minds pondering on a proposal announced by the government in Bill 170, clause 22, which allows parents to leave the sex field blank on the birth registration when the gender of the child is unclear.
Presented as an important change, what is unclear to me is whether the “undeclared” classification will be applied when, biologically, the sex of the child is in doubt, as in the case of intersex, or whether parents will be allowed to leave it empty even when the sex of the child is clear.
I am not professionally competent to say if this will help intersex people but I tried to understand the challenges faced by these people before forming an opinion.
Intersex is a biological reality that affects between 0.05 per cent and 0.7 per cent of children, according to the UN Human Rights office. It is when a child is born with variations in sex characteristics, including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones or genitals that do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies.
Mauro Cabral, for Global Action for Trans Equality (GATE), an intersex person himself, during the Intersex Awareness Day of 2016 stated that “intersex people are not a natural third sex, we don’t have a third gender by definition, and leaving a blank sex assignment at birth is not the way to ‘create justice’ for us. We need to stop approaching intersex issues as if they were trans issues.
“Some trans people use intersex as a way of explaining who they are or to make sense of their bodies or identities. By doing this, intersex becomes just another way of saying trans. However, intersex is not about being trans, queer or non-binary: it’s about bodies and what happens to people who are born with them. We need to stop instrumentalising intersex to speak our truth as trans people”.
While I would join an initiative to fight body shaming, I cannot agree that in order to solve the challenges of intersex people we need to also deny human nature and the remaining 99.3 per cent labelled ‘binary’. Male and female are not an offence to intersex people, as people with eyesight are not offensive to the visually impaired. We are simply born different; solutions should focus on inclusion, not elimination of who the rest are.
A recent article in Times of Malta, ‘Will children choose their gender now?’ (November 30), defended this amendment as it fosters “a wider acceptance of gender fluidity and/or non-heteronormative sexuality in local culture”, assuring readers that this amendment is harmless since “if a child is assigned a gender at birth they may later choose to change when they become an adult”; consequently, we should not find it difficult to allow parents to leave the sex identification blank.
Frankly, I find this argument twisted because an adult changing his or her gender classification is no justification for leaving a child genderless until adult age.
The gender fluidity theory suggests that gender is not fixed and, basically, today I may feel a man, tomorrow a woman and the week after a man again and so we should use neutral pronouns and classifications to allow for this fluidity.
The Times of Malta article tries to support the theory by quoting the American Psychological Association that defines sex as “assigned at birth, one’s biological status as either male or female” while gender as “socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women”.
So-called research quoted from a Jung Journal article defining gender fluidity as “an alternative to binary (male and female) gender identities” is becoming more common. Seriously? The Jung Journal is not a scientific journal but a website in its own words of “a beautiful international quarterly publication offering feature articles, reviews, interviews, poetry and art”. Not much of science or research.
I wrote this article because I do not think anyone’s children should become a social experiment called ‘gender fluidity’ that can damage those children that society should protect.
The study ‘Sexuality and Gender, Findings from the Biological, Psychological,and Social Sciences’ by Lawrence S. Mayer and Paul R. McHugh, both senior scholars in the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, which reviewed over 500 scientific articles, concluded that while gender dysphoria can start at the age of two to four, of those that pass through it, 80 to 90 per cent return to their original gender by the time they reach adolescence.
Transgender people today have the right to change their sex classification with significant ease. Confusing children before they even learn how to walk is wrong. Leaving sex blank for sexually-defined children will only impose confusion where there was none, with possible serious psychological and physical irreparable damage.
While questioning children should be assisted professionally and with sensitivity, too early affirmation is harmful to a child when research shows that 90 per cent of these children return to their original gender by adolescence.
Tonio Fenech is a former Minister
This is a www.timesofmalta.com opinion piece
I read the article by Isabel Stabile, published on TMIS of Sunday, 6 December, and as a researcher and gynecologist in the field, I must answer in the interest of correct consumer information to the Maltese citizens.
I base my reply quoting the Official Assessment Reports on EllaOne by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) itself. It is pertinent to note that we are speaking of two very different drugs mentioned as Morning after pill, each having a completely different mode of action. These are Levonogestrel (morning after pill) and Ella One (five days after pill).
From the studies presented, it is clear that Levonogestrel (LNG) is unable to prevent or delay ovulation; however, it leads to a shortened or inadequate corpus luteum that does not allow the endometrium to prepare for implantation. The diagram below, from a study by Brache et al, confirms that compared to the placebo, Levonogestrel does not prevent ovulation. The data is presented and shared by EMA itself in its EPAR (European Public Assessment Report) on EllaOne page 9 and updated yearly; last update being on 20 May.
The EMA shows officially that LNG does not work by affecting ovulation and is placebo-like in the fertile days, when fertilization is possible. In spite of this, the EMA presents LNG as an ovulation-inhibitor. Why?
EllaOne (ulipristal acetate, UPA) can prevent implantation and also terminate ongoing pregnancies. “Ulipristal acetate prevents progesterone from occupying its receptor, thus the gene transcription normally turned on by progesterone is blocked, and the proteins necessary to begin and maintain pregnancy are not synthesized.” (EMEA 2617/87/2009, Page 8: 2.3). On page 10 of the same document, it goes on to say that: “The ability of Ulipristal Acetate (UPA) to terminate pregnancy was investigated. Ulipristal, mifepristone and lilopristone were approximately equipotent” further confirming that it can terminate an ongoing pregnancy.
Women who would be reluctant to take any medicinal that could endanger their embryo’s life should have access to the correct information and biological processes taking place in their body. The law in Malta protects the embryo from conception. Professionals can also have a conscientious objection to referral and/or supply of such medicinals.
In her article, Stabile also emphasised the relevance of the SPC. Have a look at the image below taken from page 41 of the same 2009 EMA Assessment Report: the highlighted sentences: “Omit any sentence in the SPC and the PL suggesting that the product could be used as an abortifacient”, “Pregnancy should be excluded before EllaOne is administered” and “Contraindication: Pregnancy”, speak volumes.
Furthermore, the European Medicines Authority in the Assessment Report EMA/73099/2015 on page 35, reports that during the evaluation process of the ellaOne registration dossier, the company, HRA-Pharma, was “requested to study any potential off-label use of ellaOne, in particular during pregnancy, possibly as an abortifacient. No such clinical studies were performed with Ulipristal-Acetate and it is therefore left as an unknown, whether it is possible to use it for abortion”. This notwithstanding, at the end of the 2015 AR, EMA presented ellaOne once again as an anti-ovulatory drug and made it “not subject to medical prescription”.
EllaOne and Levonogestrel are being sold over the counter and without prescription to young adults and women who think that they are using contraceptives that are safe. No advice is obligatory as to the side effects that these medicinals can have on their health, especially with recurrent use of EllaOne. In fact, Esmya, a medicine containing the same active ingredient, ulipristal acetate, has been withdrawn from clinical use due to a direct relationship between UPA and severe liver injuries, including liver transplantation. A case of severe DILI (Drug Induced Liver Injury) occurred after an UPA consumption, not greater than the dosage in one-two tablets of EllaOne, and EllaOne, unlike Esmya, can be self-administered repeatedly, without any medical surveillance.
The scientifically correct information regarding the mechanism of action of these drugs must be available to our politicians, decision-makers, doctors, chemists and other professionals and last but not least to the women consuming these pills. Their rights and freedom of informed choice are being deliberately thwarted. Women are being deceived. They are being informed that ovulation will be prevented after taking Emergency Contraceptives, but, on the contrary, they can ovulate and can conceive, but their offspring dies as these drugs inhibit implantation. Healthwise they are completely unaware of the severe drug induced liver injury (DILI) potentially due to Ulipristal acetate.
For further information on toxicity and on the mechanism of action, please see, respectively: Ulipristal Acetate and liver-injuries: while Esmya is revoked, EllaOne is allowed in repeated self-administrations possibly exceeding UPA toxic-dosing with Esmya. Mozzanega B. J Hepatol 2020 Nov. 30; S0168-8278(20)33828-9. doi: 10.1016/j.jhep.2020.11.041.
UPA and LNG in emergency contraception: the information by EMA and the scientific evidences indicate a prevalent anti-implantation effect. Mozzanega B, Nardelli GB. Eur J Contracept Reprod Health Care 2019; 24(1):4-10. doi: 10.1080/13625187.2018.1555662. Epub 2019 Jan. 18
Further scientific papers are available on http://www.sipre.eu in Italian or English
Related article – http://staging-lifenetwork.stagingcloud.co/ulipristal-acetate-and-liver-injuries-by-bruno-mozzanega-md/
Bruno Mozzanega, Dept SDB (Woman’s and Child’s Health), University of Padua (I)
This is a www.independent.com.mt opinion piece
In their increasingly aggressive campaign to promote abortion, Doctors for Choice again claimed that the criminal code has no provision for abortion under any circumstance, not even when a woman’s life is imminently at risk of death as a result of a pregnancy.
To prove their point, they stoop to any level and are now exploiting a relatively recent case of ectopic pregnancy.
An ectopic pregnancy is a non-viable pregnancy that occurs outside of the uterine cavity, most commonly in the fallopian tube.
As a pro-life activist, I checked the facts with the help of an expert of how this condition is treated in Malta
I was informed that there are basically three ways to deal with an ectopic pregnancy and that saving the mother is the top priority.
One either waits, or one treats the case medically, or, thirdly, as a last resort, it is removed surgically.
As in all sound medical practice, invasive treatment is kept to a minimum in the interest of the patient’s well-being.
Usually, unless otherwise indicated, the mother is kept under strict observation and, often, the body solves the problem on its own, unassisted medically.
The second line of treatment is the medical option where the drug methotrexate, that cuts short the pregnancy, is administered.
The use of methotrexate is also not so straightforward as its side effects and contraindications have to be taken into account. Yet, even here, one has to weigh the risks of taking methotrexate when the risk of surgery is higher.
Once the specialist treating the mother decides medically that the patient needs methotrexate, the decision is final.
There are formulary drugs and non-formulary drugs. Formulary are easily accessible, one just needs to prescribe them, like paracetamol or certain antibiotics.
Non-formulary are more difficult to access, not for ethical reasons but because of logistical and safety issues.
Being a dangerous non-formulary drug, methotrexate needs to be signed off by the specialist/consultant and head of department, then sent to the pharmacy where the drug is prepared and finally forwarded for its administration. The whole process takes time and some delay is inevitable as the use of drugs that carry certain grave risks must be controlled.
It is about time that the pro-abortion lobbyists make a serious attempt to respect the facts. We all have a very serious obligation to ensure that the public is given the truth, especially about such life and death matters.
Sadly, again and again, ethics is not the forte of the so called ‘pro-choice’ brigade.
It is profoundly unjust and dishonest that they grasp and manipulate any extreme case they can find in order to justify their false claim that anti-abortion laws place pregnant women at risk.
Klaus Vella Bardon – Balzan
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It is disingenuous and entirely wrong for the self-styled “doctors for choice” to use the case of an unfortunate woman who suffered the traumas of an ectopic pregnancy as a “trojan horse” attempt at changing Malta’s abortion laws.
This poor lady (assuming the account in the Times of Malta is accurate) appears to have suffered additional distress as a result of what appears to have been bureaucratic delay in being given the correct treatment for her serious and potentially life-threatening problem, which is always to end the pregnancy. This case, in itself, establishes the fact that Malta’s abortion laws have nothing to do with the difficulties encountered and I cannot fathom how anyone could claim otherwise.
It should be evident that the solution to prevention of a similar future occurrence of this most regrettable incident must surely lie in modifying or speeding up the procedures already in place to ensure expeditious delivery of necessary treatment. I fail to see why the laborious process of parliamentary legislation should be required to achieve this desirable outcome.
There has never been any controversy about the need to terminate ectopic pregnancies. No pro-life institution, government or Church has ever challenged this fact.
Abortion, on the other hand, almost invariably involves the deliberate ending of a healthy, viable pregnancy. It is rarely carried out for what might be termed ‘good medical reasons’, the usual situations being ‘domestic arrangements’ or ‘economic hardship’. The minority associated with abuse/assault/foetal abnormality create tremendous difficulty all round as they are, inevitably, tragic situations to which there is no ‘happy or easy’ solution.
Malta’s would-be abortionists might like to ask themselves to explain the schizophrenic approach like-minded clinicians adopt towards pregnancy. If the baby is wanted, the foetus is happily referred to as ‘your baby/little boy/little girl’; on the other hand, if unwanted, it remains an ‘it’ and is treated like an unwanted wart, to be disposed of expeditiously.
Whither the Hippocratic oath, which, for thousands of years, included the line “I will not administer a pessary to a woman to induce an abortion”, until the evermore utilitarian approach the human race has adopted towards life led to its removal in around 1970?
Anton Borg – Gloucestershire, UK
This is a www.timesofmalta.com opinion piece
Ref: https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/letters-to-the-editor-december-10-2020.837920
During the months when the Coronavirus pandemic was at its peak, Dar T’ghanniqa T’Omm (Mother’s Embrace Home) received a number of calls from both local and foreign women, overwhelmed and panicked when they found out they were pregnant.
To contain the spread of the pandemic, flights were suspended from 21 March up until 1 July, leaving women who found themselves in an unwanted pregnancy feeling concerned, panicked and alone.
During that period, the women’s shelter received nearly 80 calls from women coming from different backgrounds and situations needing support and reassurance. “We received all kinds of calls; including mothers who gave birth but had no more money because they had been made redundant, so we would provide them with food and support. There were also women who had unplanned pregnancies and were not sure what the next steps were,” said Christie.
She explained that, during COVID-19, many mothers felt stressed and in a state of shock when they found out they were pregnant. “We were there for these mothers every step of the way. We supported them, accompanied them to any appointments they had, we just wanted to make sure that the mothers felt safe.”
The helpline also received calls from women who were considering an abortion. “We always leave the decision up to the mother; we never tell them what to do or judge them. Our councillors speak to these women to see what they need and how we can help, but at the end it is always up to the mother to decide.”
She explained that some women, and also men, call the helpline after the abortion has taken place. “We have received calls from men, some of whom felt guilty for pushing their partner to have an abortion, or who needed support themselves after their partner had an abortion. Whatever the case, we support them, and our councillors help them to grieve and come to terms with their guilt.”
The shelter, which was set up back in 2018, is run by Life Network Malta, a pro-life NGO, which welcomes women and mothers experiencing crisis pregnancies. The shelter currently hosts five mothers.
Christie explained that the Foundation began receiving a number of calls from mothers who needed help and that at the time there was no specific shelter which helped homeless pregnant women who are more likely to have an abortion. “We had mothers who would want to carry out their pregnancy but were scared of losing their accommodation, or else mothers who were kicked out by their parents who disapproved of the pregnancy. We are there to help them and provide the support they and their child need.”
She said that mothers who come to the shelter not only find a roof over their head but also are provided with the support and information they need as new mothers. She explained that she, volunteers and councillors work together to provide the mothers with a caring support system. “We become a family, we help the mothers throughout their journey and the shelter is run in a household manner.”
The volunteers and councillors provide the mothers with the necessary life skills, such as time and money management. “We even help them send CVs … whatever we can do we help them as much as possible.”
Christie recalls how, during COVID-19, the mothers had to remain inside the shelter and how one mother had to go into labour on her own in the hospital. “Unfortunately, we had to cut down the amount of volunteers coming in but we continued counselling sessions online or over the phone; we never stopped.” She said that she kept going to the shelter because she realised that the mothers felt lonely at times and the staff came up with different activities to do inside during that time.
The shelter also donated to 38 families in need. It provided food, baby milk, nappies, clothes and other items which mothers might need.
Anti-human rights? We support a mother to give birth to her child
In recent news, Voice for Choice, a pro-choice NGO working for reproductive rights have expressed its disappointment that the government donated €130,000 to Dar Tghannieqa T’Omm. “By providing funds to LifeNetwork Malta, the government is supporting an anti-human rights agenda, and this is completely unacceptable,” it said.
When asked for her opinion on the comment, Christie asked how a Foundation which is supporting a mother can be anti-human rights. “All I can say is how am I, or the Foundation, who are supporting a mother to give birth to her child, anti-human rights? If that child is not born, then they are not obliged to any of the rights we keep fighting for.”
Christie highlighted that the extra funding donated by the government will help pay for care workers to come and stay at the home during the week. Funding will also help with keeping up maintenance of the house, and providing a better programme for the mothers.
This is a independent.com.mt opinion piece
The head of obstetrics and gynaecology at Mater Dei Hospital is looking into a woman’s claim that her life was “needlessly put at risk” because it took two days for her to receive authorization to use a medicine that would end her ectopic pregnancy, which can be fatal.
“The delay is not normal and the case is being looked into,” Yves Muscat Baron said. “The patient’s life was never put at risk as she was kept under continuous surveillance. We will, however, take the opportunity to look into how the system can be improved.” He said about one to two per cent of pregnancies are ectopic, amounting to 25-35 per year. These cases are treated either surgically, by removing the fallopian tube, or medically by administering a medicine called methotrexate, which has been available at Mater Dei since 2018.
The use of methotrexate is still not common. There have been about four cases this year, Muscat Baron said. “Surgical interventions impact fertility,” he said. There is no guarantee that methotrexate works. It may have to be repeated and, in some cases, surgery may still have to be resorted to as medical treatment may not be sufficient.”
Muscat Baron stressed that the stage at which a patient goes to hospital is key in deciding on the type of treatment to administer.
The decision depends on the condition of the patient. “The decision-making process involves the specialist on call and the firm caring for the patient,” he said. The woman’s story was last week made available to the media by the NGO Doctors for Choice in Break the Taboo, a pro-choice collection of abortion experiences from Malta. An ectopic pregnancy occurs when an egg implants itself outside of the womb, usually in a fallopian tube.
Doctors for Choice have long insisted that the management of ectopic pregnancies is compromised by the country’s total legal ban on abortion. Methotrexate is technically illegal because the law criminalises all ways of inducing a miscarriage. The anonymous woman claimed it took two and a half days for methotrexate to be approved in her case, putting her life and fertility at risk. She said the scan and bloods showed she was a good candidate for the relatively new treatment without the need for surgery. Asked about the delay last week, the health ministry explained that, once the case fits the criteria, a request form for methotrexate medicine is signed by the consultant or a delegate and countersigned by the chairman or a delegate of the obstetrics and gynaecology department, in a procedure which “usually takes few hours”. Doctors for Life have pointed to the excellent track record of the hospital: no pregnant mother had lost her life in the last 10 years.
This is a timesofmalta.com article written by Claudia Calleja
