Malta is the only country in the whole of Europe where abortion is still illegal, under all circumstances,” said Stabile, as the camera zoomed in on her. “We are here to show you how easy and simple this process can be.”
The protest was small — and later met by a bigger crowd from anti-abortion protestors — but it signals a growing abortion rights movement in the small, predominantly Catholic island of Malta in the Mediterranean, where more than 90% of the population are against abortion, on religious grounds. Unlike Poland, where abortion is difficult to access, but still legal in cases of rape and incest, the abortion law in Malta doesn’t make any exceptions — even when the mother’s health is at risk.
As a result, an estimated 300 pregnant people travel abroad every year to seek abortion services in places like the United Kingdom and Italy, but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March of 2020, travel restrictions made such trips nearly impossible.
Stabile, who is part of the advocacy group Doctors for Choice, said that’s when calls to the organization shot up significantly.
“What happened at that point is that women became desperate,” Stabile said. “And it pushed us as pro-choice doctors to set up a service.”
The Family Planning Advisory Service (FPAS) was launched last August, and is run by trained volunteers providing medically-based information about reproductive health care — fertility, contraception or abortion.
Under Malta’s abortion law, doctors can face up to three years in prison for providing abortion services