Activists Supply Unsafe Abortion Pills in Violation of Malta Law
Miriam Sciberras
A Dutch NGO placed lockboxes containing abortion pills at undisclosed locations across Malta, openly defying the law as part of a coordinated campaign.
Three years after the defeat of their years-long campaign to overturn Malta’s pro-life laws, abortion activists in the last EU country with full protection for children in the womb have launched their next salvo. Having failed to change the law, they are now breaking it. Lockboxes with abortion pills have been set up across the country, and pregnant women have been invited to send emails, obtain a code, and procure the pills.
Abortion is illegal in all circumstances in Malta; the only exception is if a woman’s life is at immediate risk, as discerned by three medical specialists. Malta’s pro-life regime stands as a definitive rebuke to the abortion movement’s claims that countries cannot protect both pre-born children and their mothers; it has one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in both Europe and the world. Not a single woman died during or after childbirth from 2012 to 2023. Malta is proof that abortion activists are lying.
In 2021, however, abortion activists thought their Savita Halappanavar moment had arrived when an American tourist requested and was denied an abortion in Malta after suffering ruptured membranes during pregnancy. She was airlifted to Spain, where she procured a termination via early delivery. The government announced a review of Malta’s pro-life laws; Health Minister Chris Fearne said the case highlighted the need for legal abortion. The domestic and international press joined the campaign with a vengeance.
The initial amendment proposed by the government contained vague language permitting abortion for the purpose of the mother’s “health,” which likely would have resulted in abortion on demand. The pro-life movement mobilized. Then-president Dr. George Vella told me he would resign the presidency before signing a law legalizing abortion. Government officials got emails from over 25,000 people; over 20,000 (4% of the population) protested in Valletta; a coalition of doctors, jurists, and NGOs, and experts lobbied the government to reverse course.
The government backed down. Abortion activists were furious.
In April, the Dutch NGO Women on Waves set up fifteen black lockboxes filled with abortion pills at undisclosed locations across the country and the island of Gozo and began advertising them, claiming that around 600 women procure abortion pills by mail annually. According to the group, sixteen women contacted them in the first eight days, and all of the access codes were used. The ‘campaign’ is a deliberate violation of the law.
Some of the abortion pills have ended up in the hands of pro-lifers, who have taken it upon themselves to find them and destroy them. “We have had brave pro-life women who, of their own free will, contacted Women on Waves to ask for the abortion pills,” Dr. Miriam Sciberras, CEO of Life Network Foundation Malta, told me. “The safe was located and the pills were destroyed. I have seen three out of the fifteen myself, one of which was passed to the police, including the pills, by journalists who were given the location and who were with us to locate and open the safe.”
Women on Waves advises women who suffer complications from taking their abortion pills to go to the hospital but not to tell the doctors what had happened. One woman who called the organization to procure the pills to expose how easy they are to obtain was visibly pregnant; when she was asked if she was over 9 weeks pregnant, she simply said no, and the access codes were given. The police have not yet responded to the campaign or the exposé.
The European press has given the illegal abortion campaign glowing coverage, quoting ludicrous accusations without caveat. Isabel Stabile, co-founder of Doctors for Choice, stated, “At the moment, I would call the situation in Malta dire, absolutely dire”—this despite the fact that Malta has one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world. In a claim loaded with grotesque irony, she called on leaders to take the “simplest, safest, first baby step” towards protecting women’s health by decriminalizing abortion.
The National Council of Women of Malta, on the other hand, expressed their “grave concern” about violation of the law, the safety of women, and the right to life of the unborn. “In Europe, in America, abortion pills are the new tsunami, crossing borders, claiming innocent lives, breaking laws in their bloodthirsty hunger for human destruction,” Dr. Sciberras said. “In Malta these pills are illegal and are not available locally, although some come in an illegal manner.”
We have had women call the helpline who have ordered pills, but by the time they arrive, the women change their minds and destroy them. We have also had calls for abortion pill reversal, where we have helped refer these women for medical treatment and follow-up that helped to save the babies.
“The political consensus is still solid against abortion,” Sciberras added. “However, we have over 100,000 foreign workers living in Malta who come from countries where abortion is considered a contraceptive and there is no knowledge of embryology, only an indoctrination on ‘choice’ [that] destroys a child in the womb. The most encouraging news that I have is that when they call the helpline to check what help we offer, many times, when they learn that their baby is already there and growing, and they hear the heartbeat, they reconsider. We have seen many babies born this way.”
The grim truth about the campaign, however, is that if a woman procuring abortion pills from a black box in Malta is badly injured—a recent study indicated that 11% of women experience a medical incident—the abortion movement will benefit. Despite the fact that they supplied the pills, activists will claim that the consequent injury or death is actually proof that abortion pills must be legalized. They have facilitated a de facto ‘back alley’; they will now insist that its existence means that legal abortion is essential to solve the problem they have created.
“So there is hope for the future,” Isabel Stabile stated, referring to shifting attitudes about abortion amongst post-secondary students in Malta. “The question is, how soon can we make that happen?” Malta’s maternal healthcare is second to none, and abortion activists have tired of waiting for their Savita Halappanavar moment. Now, by pushing dangerous and illegal abortion pills, they may just create one themselves.
Jonathon Van Maren is a writer for europeanconservative.com based in Canada. He has written for First Things, National Review, The American Conservative, and his latest book is Prairie Lion: The Life & Times of Ted Byfield.
Activists Supply Unsafe Abortion Pills in Violation of Malta Law
Miriam Sciberras
You may also like
Europe’s Christians: Increasingly Squeezed Between Islamists and the Left
As demographic shifts accelerate and anti-Christian hostility mounts from both radical Islam and the secular left, the faith that is Europe’s soul faces an uncertain and darkening future.
The Strange Coincidence of D-Day, Gaudí, and an American Pope
Europe still inhabits the house that Christianity built. The question is whether it still understands the foundations.
The Battle of the Valley Continues
Pedro Sánchez is summoning the long-silent ghosts of the past in an attempt to publicly humiliate the victors of the civil war. In so doing, he has likely opened Pandora’s box—even if he has not yet realised it.
Three years after the defeat of their years-long campaign to overturn Malta’s pro-life laws, abortion activists in the last EU country with full protection for children in the womb have launched their next salvo. Having failed to change the law, they are now breaking it. Lockboxes with abortion pills have been set up across the country, and pregnant women have been invited to send emails, obtain a code, and procure the pills.
Abortion is illegal in all circumstances in Malta; the only exception is if a woman’s life is at immediate risk, as discerned by three medical specialists. Malta’s pro-life regime stands as a definitive rebuke to the abortion movement’s claims that countries cannot protect both pre-born children and their mothers; it has one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in both Europe and the world. Not a single woman died during or after childbirth from 2012 to 2023. Malta is proof that abortion activists are lying.
In 2021, however, abortion activists thought their Savita Halappanavar moment had arrived when an American tourist requested and was denied an abortion in Malta after suffering ruptured membranes during pregnancy. She was airlifted to Spain, where she procured a termination via early delivery. The government announced a review of Malta’s pro-life laws; Health Minister Chris Fearne said the case highlighted the need for legal abortion. The domestic and international press joined the campaign with a vengeance.
The initial amendment proposed by the government contained vague language permitting abortion for the purpose of the mother’s “health,” which likely would have resulted in abortion on demand. The pro-life movement mobilized. Then-president Dr. George Vella told me he would resign the presidency before signing a law legalizing abortion. Government officials got emails from over 25,000 people; over 20,000 (4% of the population) protested in Valletta; a coalition of doctors, jurists, and NGOs, and experts lobbied the government to reverse course.
The government backed down. Abortion activists were furious.
In April, the Dutch NGO Women on Waves set up fifteen black lockboxes filled with abortion pills at undisclosed locations across the country and the island of Gozo and began advertising them, claiming that around 600 women procure abortion pills by mail annually. According to the group, sixteen women contacted them in the first eight days, and all of the access codes were used. The ‘campaign’ is a deliberate violation of the law.
Some of the abortion pills have ended up in the hands of pro-lifers, who have taken it upon themselves to find them and destroy them. “We have had brave pro-life women who, of their own free will, contacted Women on Waves to ask for the abortion pills,” Dr. Miriam Sciberras, CEO of Life Network Foundation Malta, told me. “The safe was located and the pills were destroyed. I have seen three out of the fifteen myself, one of which was passed to the police, including the pills, by journalists who were given the location and who were with us to locate and open the safe.”
Women on Waves advises women who suffer complications from taking their abortion pills to go to the hospital but not to tell the doctors what had happened. One woman who called the organization to procure the pills to expose how easy they are to obtain was visibly pregnant; when she was asked if she was over 9 weeks pregnant, she simply said no, and the access codes were given. The police have not yet responded to the campaign or the exposé.
The European press has given the illegal abortion campaign glowing coverage, quoting ludicrous accusations without caveat. Isabel Stabile, co-founder of Doctors for Choice, stated, “At the moment, I would call the situation in Malta dire, absolutely dire”—this despite the fact that Malta has one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world. In a claim loaded with grotesque irony, she called on leaders to take the “simplest, safest, first baby step” towards protecting women’s health by decriminalizing abortion.
The National Council of Women of Malta, on the other hand, expressed their “grave concern” about violation of the law, the safety of women, and the right to life of the unborn. “In Europe, in America, abortion pills are the new tsunami, crossing borders, claiming innocent lives, breaking laws in their bloodthirsty hunger for human destruction,” Dr. Sciberras said. “In Malta these pills are illegal and are not available locally, although some come in an illegal manner.”
“The political consensus is still solid against abortion,” Sciberras added. “However, we have over 100,000 foreign workers living in Malta who come from countries where abortion is considered a contraceptive and there is no knowledge of embryology, only an indoctrination on ‘choice’ [that] destroys a child in the womb. The most encouraging news that I have is that when they call the helpline to check what help we offer, many times, when they learn that their baby is already there and growing, and they hear the heartbeat, they reconsider. We have seen many babies born this way.”
The grim truth about the campaign, however, is that if a woman procuring abortion pills from a black box in Malta is badly injured—a recent study indicated that 11% of women experience a medical incident—the abortion movement will benefit. Despite the fact that they supplied the pills, activists will claim that the consequent injury or death is actually proof that abortion pills must be legalized. They have facilitated a de facto ‘back alley’; they will now insist that its existence means that legal abortion is essential to solve the problem they have created.
“So there is hope for the future,” Isabel Stabile stated, referring to shifting attitudes about abortion amongst post-secondary students in Malta. “The question is, how soon can we make that happen?” Malta’s maternal healthcare is second to none, and abortion activists have tired of waiting for their Savita Halappanavar moment. Now, by pushing dangerous and illegal abortion pills, they may just create one themselves.
Our community starts with you
READ NEXT
Labour MP Puts Assisted Suicide Bill Back on Life Support
‘Sense Offenders’ and Sudan
The Fraud of Compromise