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James Debono
A woman who risks suffering blindness by going through with her pregnancy will not be allowed to carry out an abortion in Malta. This puts Malta in the same league as Poland – a country which was this week found guilty of violating the human rights of a 35-year-old mother, refused an abortion despite warnings that having the baby could make her go blind.
“Abortion in Malta is illegal and is not allowed under any circumstance,” Dr Ray Busuttil, Director General of the Health Division, told MaltaToday when asked whether abortion is allowed in cases where a Maltese mother risks blindness if she proceeds with her pregnancy.
On Tuesday, Polish resident Alicja Tysiac, an unemployed single mother of thee, was awarded EURO 25,000 (LM10,500) in damages by the European Court of Justice.
When Alicja Tysiac became pregnant in February 2000, three eye specialists told her having another baby could put her eyesight at serious risk. But neither the specialists nor her GP would authorise an abortion.
After giving birth later that year, Ms Tysiac suffered a retinal haemorrhage and feared she may go blind. She now wears glasses with thick powerful lenses, but still cannot see objects more than a metre and a half away. As a disabled single mother, she struggles to raise her three children on her meagre state pension.
The Strasbourg court ruled that the mother’s human rights had been violated when she was denied an abortion on therapeutic grounds. But the court ruling will not affect Poland’s strict abortion laws, which some right-wing politicians want to make even stricter.
According to Dr Michael Axiaq, the Nationalist MP and Opus Dei member who chairs the National Ethics Board Committee, in such cases one has to choose between “a lesser of two evils” namely the life of the baby and the disability of the mother. “In such cases, our choice should be that of protecting life.”
Commenting on the Polish case, Axiaq expressed amazement that the Polish doctors did not resort to a Caesarean operation: “Since the woman risked blindness through child birth, a Caesarean operation would have saved her from blindness.”
According to Axiaq, through proper pre-and antenatal screening one can avoid such cases.
“Women risking blindness can be advised not to have more children. If the condition is discovered during the early stages of pregnancy a Caesarean operation can be performed as early as 24 weeks.”
Malta has so far resisted international calls to legalise therapeutic abortions. In 2004 a United Nations Committee set up to monitor compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, urged Malta to review its legislation on abortion and consider exceptions to the general prohibition of abortion for cases of therapeutic abortions, and when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.
Michael Axiaq told MaltaToday that in Malta abortion is only permissible when “it’s a question between the mother’s life and the unborn child’s life.”
In such extreme cases, according to Axiaq the Hospital Ethics Committee and the Bioethics Board are asked to submit recommendations to the hospital authorities.
“But if the choice is really a choice between two lives, it is up to the mother and the father to determine whose life should be saved,” Axiaq told MaltaToday. Axiaq claims that abortion is also legal in cases of ectopic pregnancies, where the embryo develops in the fallopian tubes, or in case of cancer of the uterus.
“These are indirect abortions where doctors intervene to save the mother’s life and as a consequence have to remove the foetus. This is not illegal,” Axiaq told MaltaToday.
jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt |
