VOICE FOR CHOICE PRESS STATEMENT ON THE ANDREA PRUDENTE RULING

We express our profound outrage and dismay at the Constitutional Court’s ruling in the case of Andrea Prudente. This judgement is a stain on women’s rights and reproductive healthcare in Malta. It serves only to reinforce the state oppression, medical misogyny and degrading treatment that pregnant people face in our country.

We are utterly appalled by the Court’s deeply patronising assertion that Andrea Prudente was “used” by pro-choice activists to push a legal agenda, and that she “played ball to their beliefs”. This claim by the Judge is a gross insult to her intelligence and autonomy. Andrea is a fully capable adult who recognised the danger she was in and advocated fiercely for her own health; to dismiss her lived experience and her trauma as mere manipulation strips her entirely of her agency.

The judgment deliberately ignores global medical science. The Court completely disregarded the medical facts submitted by FIGO (The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics). FIGO is the global authority that represents Malta's own gynaecologists, including the medical witnesses in this case, and sets the standard for safe maternity care worldwide. In their letter to the Judge, reproduced here (https://www.doctorsforchoice.mt/.../scientific-opinion-of...), FIGO clearly stated that at 15 weeks, the chance of the fetus surviving is far lower than the mother's risk of severe bleeding and deadly infection (sepsis). Pointing to medical research, FIGO highlighted that when waters break before 17 weeks, no babies survived, while a huge percentage of the women suffered from haemorrhage or infection. Instead of listening to the world's top medical experts, the Judge used Andrea's ability to survive an emergency flight to Spain as twisted "proof" that her life was never in danger.

Adding insult to injury, the judgement acknowledges Andrea’s terror but appallingly dismisses her severe distress as "somewhat self-inflicted" (xi naqra self inflicted). The Court blames her fear on the fact that she researched her own condition and refused to blindly agree with the local doctors' "wait-and-see" protocol. Advocating for your own life and demanding modern medical care is not "self-inflicting" trauma: the trauma was inflicted by a state that forced her to wait for a potentially fatal infection to set in.

This ruling sends a chilling message to all pregnant people in Malta. It explicitly reinforces a culture of oppression, dictating that a woman’s life, health, and voice are secondary to Malta’s so-called public morals or religious ideology. It reinforces a terrifying practice: women must literally be at death’s door before they are deemed worthy of receiving life-saving termination care.

We stand in absolute solidarity with Andrea Prudente and her partner, Jay Wheeler, who endured unimaginable trauma, fear, and uncertainty under the Maltese healthcare system. They were denied standard medical care, forced to arrange emergency medical evacuation to Spain, and are now being insulted by the very justice system that was supposed to vindicate them.

The pro-choice movement will not be silenced by judicial attempts to undermine our credibility or the autonomy of the women we support. We will continue to fight unapologetically for the decriminalisation of abortion, the protection of pregnant people’s lives, and a healthcare system rooted in science, compassion, and human rights.