Pro-choice doctor reveals abuse she received: ‘Let’s kill her children and see how she likes it’

Updated 5/5/22 at 1:51pm 

A documentary on abortion in Malta has revealed the abuse members of Doctors for Choice face, including death threats to themselves and family members.

Dr Natalie Psaila said that she and colleagues would be sent messages such as “You should be burned alive,” or “I suggest you try and kill yourself before you try and kill unborn babies.”

Psaila said that pro-life groups would put up pictures of them on Facebook, calling them “butchers” and “murders,” and that they went as far as to threaten her children.

“One had said 'let’s kill her children and see how she likes it then'. That does make me worried for the safety of my children and family. I have reported these comments to the police, but I haven’t heard back from them,” Psaila said.

Doctors for Choice was set up in 2019 in a bid to support the Voice for Change campaign for reproductive rights by the Women’s Rights Foundation.

The documentary also featured an interview with a woman who had ordered abortion bills online.

The woman recounted how scared she was to order the pills because she was afraid her parents would find out.

Once taking the pills, she experienced heavy bleeding and felt faint. However, she was too afraid to go to the hospital because she didn’t want to have to tell the doctors what she’d taken.

“When something goes wrong, women can’t pick up the phone and talk to their own GP and discuss their symptoms because they're scared that their own doctors would report them,” Psaila said.

In February, the UK-based charity Abortion Support said that it had assisted 269 people from Malta to get an abortion since it extended its services on the island three years ago.  

Malta has one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the world and is the only country in the European Union to prohibit abortion entirely. However, this has not stopped  hundreds of Maltese women every year who seek abortions in the UK or neighbouring Italy. This situation, campaigners insist, is discriminatory since it only makes abortion available to those who can afford to go abroad.

Furthermore, those who procure abortion pills online cannot seek assistance out of fear that they would be reported.

'Limited response from Hate Crimes Unit'

Following the publication of this article, Doctors for Choice said that the NGO always reports hate speech to the Hate Crimes Unit but has had a limited response.

Since the documentary was released, three people have been charged in court, and two of them have been found guilty of hate speech.