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Activists demonstrate against the strict abortion ban in Malta's capital Valletta
Photo: DARRIN ZAMMIT LUPI / REUTERS
In Malta, doctors refuse to perform an abortion on a US tourist.
Andrea Prudente was on vacation on the Mediterranean island when she had to be hospitalized in the 16th week of pregnancy due to heavy bleeding.
There, doctors found that Prudente's placenta had partially detached from the uterus.
Shortly thereafter, her waters ruptured and an ultrasound revealed "that the fetus will not survive," said Prudente's partner Jay Weeldreyer.
However, since the fetus's heart continues to beat, the law prohibits doctors from performing an abortion.
'They're waiting for the heart to stop, for Andrea to miscarry or get a life-threatening infection,' Weeldreyer said.
Only then should the doctors intervene.
However, the US tourist fears that his partner would not survive a sepsis.
Doctors were gambling with his partner's life, he said.
"She's terrified." Medical staff came every day to check for a fetal heartbeat.
"It's an unimaginable form of emotional and psychological torture," Weeldreyer said.
The couple's insurance company tried to fly them out to a country with more liberal abortion laws.
However, because of possible complications, no one is willing to take them, Weeldreyer said.
Weeldreyer quoted The Guardian as saying that the doctors at the hospital were uncooperative when they passed on medical records to the insurance company.
"I just want to get out of here alive," Prudente told the newspaper from her hospital room in Malta's capital, Valletta.
"In my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined a nightmare like this." She feels "being actively traumatized."
The organization Doctors for Choice confirmed the case.
The fetus has "no chance of survival," said doctor Natalie Psaila of the AFP news agency.
For the mother, however, the situation is “very dangerous”.
The predominantly Catholic Malta is the only country in the EU to outright ban abortion, even if the fetus has no chance of surviving.
Activists in Malta say the case is reminiscent of Savita Halappanavar, who died of sepsis in an Irish hospital in 2012 after doctors refused an abortion.
kha/AFP