In mid-November 2022, ministers in Malta promised to review their abortion law, which bans all abortions, when a US tourist was denied an abortion after she began to miscarry, and was told doctors could do nothing while the baby’s heart was still beating.
Facing uterine sepsis, which is rapidly fatal if untreated (including with an emergency abortion of the pregnancy) she asked for an abortion. Only after days of waiting and a lot of protests nationally, she was eventually allowed to fly to Spain, where they saved her life.
Maltese Health Minister Chris Fearne said an amendment would go before parliament to ensure doctors were legally protected in cases of a medical complication that put the woman’s life at risk or her health in grave jeopardy due to the pregnancy.
SOURCE: BBC News, by Jessica Parker, Paul Kirby, 17 November 2022