Mariposa* was angry as she recounted her experience of being kicked out of a doctor’s office after seeking advice on abortion.

“He was judging,” she told Liza Caruana-Finkel, who looked at the stigma surrounding the issue as part of her Masters dissertation.

“I felt very isolated,” another woman told her. “That is… the worst of it. The fact that…[you’re] like a criminal, you know,” she said.

Abortion in Malta has always been a contentious matter. The country has some of the strictest laws in the world and remains the only country in the EU to ban it under any circumstance.

Ms Caruana-Finkel interviewed six women who had an abortion abroad and one who accessed the morning after pill illegally.

The study was qualitative and does not necessarily represent the views of the majority of women who have gone through the experience.

Sometimes, she found, abortion was a way to escape an abusive relationship. In other cases, as with a woman who was suicidal on finding out she was pregnant, the procedure was a lifeline.

Secrecy and silence still dominate Maltese society, which perpetuates the stigma of abortion and prevents most women from speaking up

Ms Caruana-Finkel said almost all stories reported in the media spread the false message that women who terminate their pregnancy are victims of a terrible and shameful decision. With her study she wanted to shed light on a different reality – one where women did not feel regret but stigma kept them in the shadows.

“I never regretted my abortion... not for a second,” one woman told her.

“It is not that the women were glad to have an abortion but that they saw it as an opportunity to start anew, without having to be ‘tied down’ by abusive partners or single motherhood, for example,” Ms Caruana-Finkel explained.

“A sense of relief was noted by all the women who had an abortion, which has actually been shown in research studies as the most common emotional response post-abortion,” she said.

“Secrecy and silence still dominate Maltese society, which perpetuates the stigma of abortion and prevents most women from speaking up.”

Society was unkind to women who underwent the procedure and shamed them for not living up to the ideal of motherhood and womanhood.

“When women’s stories remain hidden, the prevalence of abortion is underestimated,” she said. “And so, those who oppose abortion miss out on interactions which might make them more tolerant and empathic towards women who seek and have abortions,” she told attendees for the launch of Voice for Choice Friday evening.

The pro-choice coalition said it will be campaigning for the decriminalisation of abortion and advocating for laws that ensure the health of pregnant women is protected.

Read: Abortion Support Network expands service to Malta

Voice for Choice said it had launched its campaign to strive for a society based on equal respect and justice free from discrimination for all genders and minority groups.

She also warned of a vicious circle – speaking about experiences is indispensable to a change in public perception, but women refuse to speak up because the same public stigmatised them.

*This name has been changed

Read: Women should have access to abortion in at least four circumstances - paper says

Bishop on protection of life

In the first in a series of regular articles being published in the Christian spirituality page of The Sunday Times of Malta, Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Galea Curmi argues that just as Malta has applied for the humble ftira to be included in Unesco’s list of intangible heritage of humanity, so too should our country make a case for the principle of the protection of human life, starting from conception, to be included in the same list.

Moreover, he says that, as a people, our default position should be that of zero tolerance to all threats to life, and offering support to whoever is at risk, whether they are the unborn, pregnant women, the elderly, migrants, recreational drug users, those living in precarious conditions, or indeed the environment.

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