Following a judicial protest by the Women’s Rights Foundation against the State demanding the licensing, importation and distribution of emergency contraception, members Lara Dimitrijevic and Andreana Dibben tell Claire Caruana why legalising the ‘morning-after’ pill is crucial to protecting women’s fundamental rights and how far they are willing to go to make this happen.

There are claims that the morning-after pill is abortive. What’s your reaction?

Lara Dimitrijevic: It is not abortive and I call on whoever is saying so to back this up with scientific evidence. The morning-after pill is a hormonal contraceptive. At the end of the day it all boils down to what is a pregnancy. In order to have a pregnancy you have to have the blastocyst which attaches itself to the lining of the uterus.

Andreana Dibben: To be an abortifacient, there has to be a pregnancy. Now, if there is a pregnancy – and all international scientific communities define pregnancy as there having been an implantation – the emergency contraceptive won’t work. So if there is an established pregnancy, if there is implantation, emergency contraception will not have any effect.

All hormonal contraception, the oral contraceptive pill, the IUD, the Mirena, implants, injections, all these can thin the lining of the uterus and so they all can potentially prevent implantation, but these are available in Malta.

Couldn’t this, however, still be a precursor to legalising abortion?

LD: No, we are not talking about abortion at all. Here we are talking about discrimination. This kind of contraception can only be taken by women and the fact that it is not being made available, simply because they refuse to have it licenced, is discriminatory against women. This was brought to our attention and we took it on board because this is discrimination against all women, especially when any other contraception is readily available.

Why push for this now?

LD: For quite some time we have had a number of women approaching us. Apart from the 102 women who originally backed the judicial protest, we had even more women reaching out to us after we announced it had been filed. Women keep coming forward telling us this is discriminatory and so we had to do something about it.

How far are you willing to take this?

LD: We’re ready to take it up to court if need be and, depending on the outcome of the decisions within the local courts, we will then most definitely be ready to take it to the European Court of Human Rights.

It’s not going to stop here; this was just the start. Through the judicial protest we have put the government in mora and said the women filing the protest feel they are being discriminated against and that their human rights are being breached. Do something about it, or we are going to take it further.

We are not talking about abortion at all. Here we are talking about discrimination

Not licensing this contraception goes against the fundamental rights of women that emanate from international treaties, such as the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which has been signed and ratified by Malta. This specifically states that there should not be discrimination based on a women’s reproductive rights, for example. So no, it is not going to stop here.

There have been reports that there is a booming black market for the morning-after pill. Did that further motivate you to file the protest?

LD: What has come to our attention and is cause for great concern is that when women ask pharmacists and even doctors for the morning-after pill, they are being told that the effect of it can be achieved by taking an overdose of the oral contraceptive pill. Some of the women who signed the judicial protest have actually experienced this and they said the effects were quite serious, impacting their physical and psychological health.

Were these women actually instructed by their doctors to overdose on the oral contraceptive pill?

LD: Yes, they were told by their doctors or their pharmacists to take the overdose, which brings up another crucial issue. Why are we permitting a situation where people are being asked to overdose on one medication when there is already another medication for that exact same purpose? The active ingredient is actually available in other medications but in different dosages.

That’s where the hypocrisy of the situation comes out. Telling women to overdose is really quite serious and it’s seriously harming their bodies at the end of the day. This has been going on for many, many years.

Is the political climate right to be bringing up this issue?

LD: We opted not to lobby the government because we are talking about fundamental rights for women here, namely the right to family planning, the right not to be discriminated against, and so we opted to go through legal measures. If there is a wrong, with regard to a human right, it has to be remedied through legal measures. It’s not a matter of the move being politically motivated.

Some have argued that licensing the morning-after pill would lead to more people engaging in casual and unprotected sex. What is your reaction to such claims?

LD: Definitely not, most definitely not. First of all, if you had to look at the statistics, in Malta, there already is a lot of promiscuity. But it’s the same argument with the oral contraceptive pill. It doesn’t mean that just because a woman goes on the pill she is going to be having more casual sex.

AD: In terms of sexual activity, we don’t rank high up but then in terms of contraceptive use, we have one of the lowest rates in the EU and we also have one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies as well. But emergency contraception is not just about teenagers. In the protest we have people aged between 16 and 62.

We also have to factor in domestic violence and rape, which come along with the package of sexual coercion.

A lot of young mothers are not empowered to be able to negotiate contraceptive use. You have boyfriends asking their partners why they would want to go on the pill, questioning whether they want it to be promiscuous.

This view, of women using contraception to be able to have casual sex, is a very misogynistic view and is being used by men to control women.

Telling women to overdose is really quite serious and it’s seriously harming their bodies at the end of the day

Do you think such arguments stem from the inadequacy of Malta’s sexual education programme?

LD: Definitely, that plays a big role in it. We have to start offering proper and serious sexual education to our children from a very young age. We have to move away from this idea that sex is a taboo, because it’s not, it is part of human life and so it has to be taught as such. It ultimately boils down to providing education and information that empowers and informs. We need proper sexual education from a young age, as young as early primary school age. We really need a whole holistic approach to this.

AD: In fact, international research actually shows that comprehensive sexual education does not increase the rate of people engaging in unsafe sexual behaviour. It also shows that abstinence-based education will not stop young people from having sex, but when they eventually do have sex, they will not use contraception. This seems to be the reality here.

But it’s not a matter of having one or the other. We are all for education, but at the same time that is no excuse not to license emergency contraception.

In other EU countries, such as the UK, a woman who requires emergency contraception can simply walk into a pharmacy and get the pill over the counter. Will you be pushing for such access?

LD: In most countries, they do not even ask any questions. A woman just goes and asks for it. In an ideal scenario, yes, that would be best. It is documented that you cannot overdose on emergency contraception, so why not make it available over the counter? The time window when it is effective is three to five days, so time is of the essence with such cases. There should also not be derogations where the moral opinion of the pharmacist comes into it.

Those who need the contraceptive and are able to pay can go abroad and get it, or pay someone else to get it. Doesn’t this spark inequality among women?

LD: A person who is able to hop on to a plane or pop over to Sicily is in a very privileged situation, but most women would not be in such a position and so yes, we have a situation which is blatantly discriminatory.

AD: Not having the contraceptive puts the most vulnerable at risk, and when we’re talking about vulnerability, it’s not just financial vulnerability. Take someone who was violently attacked and raped and because of the injuries they have to go to hospital. While there, you have no chance of getting the contraceptive. So how do you access it? It just won’t be given, even though you are in your most vulnerable state.

Bishops’ concern

The Maltese bishops yesterday expressed their concern at the judicial protest filed to legalise the morning-after pill.

Insisting they strongly believed in the role and dignity of women, the bishops expressed support towards organisations that had in the past days insisted that human dignity should be protected from conception.

In a statement, the bishops stressed they supported the rights of voiceless children before they are born. “We therefore affirm that the legalisation of this pill, which is abortive in many cases, should not be tied to the argument of women’s rights or with reproductive health.

“The issue remains one concerning the moral fibre of society, without which we will not only be erasing all that we’ve achieved but we will have nothing to relay to those who come after us,” they said.

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