Alleanza Bidla pundit sued for libel over ‘baby-killer’ slur against MGRM

The Malta Gay Rights Movement has sued Ivan Grech Mintoff, who ran for MEP on the ticket of his own eurosceptic formation Alleanza Bidla, for defamatory statements he broadcast on YouTube and on Facebook.

The libel suit is the second after the NGO sued pro-life organisation Gift Of Life, for alleging that the gay rights movement was being funded by the American pro-choice organisation Planned Parenthood – the largest single provider of reproductive health services, including abortion, in the United States.

The MGRM said Grech Mintoff’s defamatory statements included alleging on Facebook that an MGRM representative had admitted “taking money from murdered children to fund her own personal agenda”; stating on television that the MGRM “took money from people who killed children”; and suggesting on Facebook that the MGRM were “in bed with the world’s foremost abortion promoters”.

Grech Mintoff is a former chairman of the adoption board who was not reappointed after he opposed allowing parents in civil unions to adopt children.

MGRM also filed a libel lawsuit against Gift Of Life for repeatedly alleging in various social media posts that the gay rights group was being funded by women’s health group Planned Parenthood.

MGRM has denied having any ties to Planned Parenthood, and instead it declared that in 2010 it had acquired funds from International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) – which is a separate organisation to Planned Parenthood – to submit proposals to the government on the introduction of the Gender Identity Act. 

IPPF is a pro-choice organisation that advocates for women’s health rights as well as access to contraception and safe abortion services, and is funded by the European Commission and the United Nations Population Fund, amongst other organisations. 

The MGRM said Gift Of Life’s declarations were false and that it never promoted the introduction of abortion to Malta. “MGRM has no position on abortion, and this issue does not even fall within its aims. These comments are libellous in its regard because they contain false and defamatory allegations in a bid to put the organisation in disrepute.”

The Labour government is planning to reintroduce embryo freezing after the practice was banned by the Nationalist administration in 2012 when it introduced assisted reproduction on the national health register using only egg freezing technology.