In this post, guest blogger Maria Pawlowska discusses anti-abortion policies in Malta, drawing comparisons to her previous post on Poland and relating the harmful repercussions of these policies to the influence of the Catholic Church, social conservatism, and gender inequality. Maria is a healthcare analyst with a passion for reproductive health and gender issues in health care provision. Maria has a PhD from Cambridge, where she was a Gates scholar, and has worked with the Global Poverty Project and RESULTS UK.
In my previous post I wrote about how the political transformation in Poland had a detrimental effect on reproductive rights. Now, I would like to take a closer look at Malta – where abortion is completely illegal – and investigate the political and social climate in which women’s lives are valued less than those of the foetuses they carry.
Being a pregnant woman in Malta can be dangerous – abortions are completely illegal even if they endanger the pregnant woman’s life. As a result, a doctor who removes a pregnancy to save the life of the woman is banned from the profession and can be sentenced to up to four years in jail. This law potentially puts pregnant Maltanese women in extreme danger. However, those who are responsible for providing their medical care support the current legislation. In an interview for the Times of Malta, Donald Felice, president of the Malta College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, says that throughout his 40 years of experience he never witnessed any “dramatic” cases where a woman’s life depended on an abortion – and that’s jolly nice, but does not in any way make pregnant women safer! He continues – “If a woman needs treatment, like chemotherapy, we will administer it and let the baby take its chances, even if it is likely that the unborn child could die as a secondary effect.” Therefore, according to doctor Felice, having women go through the trauma of a serious illness and additionally a likely stillbirth or miscarriage is the preferred option. Moreover, he simply chooses to ignore pregnancies which result from crime, pregnancies which endanger the mother’s life (such as ectopic pregnancies) and diseases which can become fatal if the patient is pregnant. Ectopic pregnancies for example occur in about 11-16 pregnancies per 1000. According to the Maltanese Statistics Office there were 4143 births in Malta in 2009 – therefore, statistically speaking at least 4 women had seriously life-endangering pregnancies, which were unlikely to resolve safely.
It was hoped that a recent ruling in which The European Court of Human Rights found that a sick woman’s human rights were breached when she sought an abortion in Ireland but was forced to go to the UK instead, might lead to the Maltanese government to reconsider its abortion policies. However, analysis of the verdict and the political situation in Malta suggest this is highly unlikely. According to Judge Bonello, one of the judges deciding on this case, the Irish state’s fault was failing to provide legal and practical structures through which a woman could make use of her legally recognized right to abortion if her life was in danger. Therefore, the verdict of the European Court of Human Rights does not force countries to provide their citizens with means of obtaining an abortion (in which case it would have an impact on the situation in Malta). It simply states, that if a country decides abortion is legal in some circumstances, women must be able to access it – this hadn’t happened in Ireland. Maltanese law clearly states that abortion is illegal and therefore the government is under no obligation whatsoever to provide any – even potentially life-saving – abortion services.
Polish “pro-life” groups were actually hoping to catch up with Malta in this respect – a law which would completely delegalize abortion had made it through a first hearing in the Parliament. Luckily for Polish women, however, last week the Polish Parliamentary Commission on Social Politics and Family voted to give no further consideration to this bill. However, the fact the bill made it all the way to the parliamentary commission is a clear sign that the influence of the “pro-life” movement is steadily increasing.
The fact that such strict anti-abortion laws are considered in places like Poland, and are legal reality in places like Malta, has little to do with bioethics and everything to do with a similar political backdrop in which the Catholic Church has a huge say. In Malta, for example, divorce will only become an option this October – previously the Catholic Church blocked any debates of this issue. In Poland, on the other hand, crosses hang in all public institutions, Catholic religion is taught in state schools and Church officials very actively and openly take part in political debates. Of course, this influence can be seen most clearly when it comes to reproductive rights. Don’t get me wrong – I firmly believe that views to the effect that life should be “protected from conception” – should have the right to be expressed by religious authorities. That’s exactly what free speech is for. However, when they become the law of the land they break the human rights of that country’s citizens and put their lives at stake.
Moreover, there is a clear link between social conservatism, women’s roles in society and anti-abortion laws. According to socially conservative views of gender roles, a woman’s primary duty to the family and state is bearing and raising children and all her other talents, ambitions and needs should be secondary to motherhood. When women are valued primarily as “home-makers” and their main role in society is seen as nurtures of the family, strict anti-abortion laws “aid and enhance” the fulfilment of women’s function in society. Consequently, if women are seen chiefly as child-bearers, it is easier for the lawmaker to justify sacrificing women’s life in relation to pregnancy (although I do not think it is inconsequential that in these countries the vast majority of parliamentarians and government members are men). Women’s devaluing to primarily the role of de facto incubators is highlighted by the term “pro-life legislation”. Even though the strictest anti-abortion (and therefore most “pro-life”) laws may result in a doubling of preventable casualties the term does not ring hallow to a majority of its supporters. This is because they are clear on which life is important – the foetus’; a pregnant women is simply a means of getting the foetus into the world.
There is little doubt that anti-abortion laws are as much about sex equality as they are about anything else. In Poland and Malta the anti-abortion laws are symptomatic of deeper inequalities and the harshness of the anti-abortion law seems correlated to the level of discrimination. Consequently, in the 2010 Global Gender Gap report Poland is 43rd and Malta 83rd most unequal country (out of 134 listed country). It isn’t a coincidence that Iceland – number 1 in the report – has legal abortion. Over 40 years ago the Icelandic government gave its female citizens the full right to decide about their bodies and confirmed the importance of self-determination irrespective of gender. Poland and Malta still aren’t there.
I find it highly discriminating that you champion of the rights of the woman to abortion while forgetting that the foetus also has a right to life. Or were you not once a foetus? Perhaps if you have been aborted by your mother you will not have the opportunity to achieve all you have today.
You talk about ‘preventable casualty’ as if abortion was not a casualty in it self. *shakes head*
I’m actually certain I would not have acheived anything if my mother had aborted me, for the very simple reason that I would have never been born. Which does not in the least change my very strong conviction that women should be allowed to make decisions about their bodies. And foetuses are cells inside their bodies. Until they are in their mother’s body they have no rights, so cannot be discriminated against. I respect people’s right to have other opinions about abortion – be it for ethical, moral, religous or any other reason. However when their opinions endanger women’s lives it’s not just about opinions anymore but about saving and preserving lives and I have no doubt in my mind that the mother’s life should come first.