Azzopardi’s incredible claim: ‘Pregnant American woman feigned danger to fuel abortion controversy’

Former MP Jason Azzopardi has claimed that American tourist Andrea Prudente was brought to Malta on purpose to instigate the abortion debate, earning him backlash from pro-choice activists.

In a strongly worded Facebook post, he even doubted whether Prudente’s very real medical complications were true.

“You have to be truly trash to connive with foreign third parties so that a pregnant woman is brought to Malta to instigate a controversy over the termination of a pregnancy by pretending she was in danger,” Azzopardi wrote on Wednesday.

Prudente was 16 weeks pregnant while on holiday in Malta when she started to miscarry. Doctors at Mater Dei told her the pregnancy was no longer viable but would not terminate it because the foetus still had a beating heart. Prudente’s life was not on the line but she risked contracting sepsis, a serious blood infection that is potentially fatal.

Prudente was eventually flown out of Malta to Spain where the pregnancy was terminated.

Jason Azzopardi's Facebook post

But Azzopardi has suggested Prudente’s state was all pretence and even went one step further, insisting his belief is the truth. “This is not a hypothesis, not a theory. This is the objective and factual truth of what happened,” he said, urging those like him opposed to abortion to stop being naïve.

Azzopardi’s incredible assertion was immediately shot down by pro-choice activist Andrea Dibben, who accused him of lying.

Dibben wrote: “Other activists, volunteers and myself lived every hour the suffering that Andrea and Jay (her partner) passed through and spent nights not sleeping until she was safe in Spain. We appealed and fought for doctors to intervene because we could not bear see her in that state. It’s good that this woman is in America and not seeing how you are trying to ridicule her. How can we expect Maltese women who pass through similar circumstances to speak up?”

She challenged Azzopardi to say who he was referring to when using the word ‘trash’. “If you are man enough tell us... so that we can meet in court, where you will have to prove what you are saying,” Dibben hit back.

Azzopardi’s attempt to ridicule Prudente and her medical complications comes a day after former Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia’s reference to the American woman verged on ridicule when he spoke in parliament on the abortion amendment.

Parliament is currently debating an amendment to the Criminal Code put forward by government that would allow doctors to terminate a pregnancy if a woman’s life or health is in danger.

The Opposition is opposed to the change, insisting this was introducing abortion.