Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1471699
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 26 JUNE 2022 OPINION 10 Raphael Vassallo OPINION No country for pregnant women "I just want to get out of here alive," she said. "I couldn't in my wildest dreams have thought up a nightmare like this…" In case you were wondering: no, that's not a line from the latest Coen Brothers psycho-thriller. They are the actual words of Andrea Prudente - the American tour- ist who was unfortunate enough to suffer 'pregnancy problems' [note: I won't be go- ing into any medical jargon, in this article], while on holiday here in sunny, 'pro-life' Malta. And they were uttered at a time when she was still experiencing the psychological 'torture' of 'being held hostage' (her own words, once more) at Mater Dei Hospital. Interestingly enough, however: it turns out that the 'nightmare' that caused this woman to fear for her life, had very little to do with the actual condition of her preg- nancy itself. Or at least: not at the time when she first sought medical assistance, way back on 12 June. Naturally, I lack the medical qualifica- tions to give you a full breakdown of what caused her to spontaneously miscarry, af- ter only 16 weeks. But even as a layman, I can safely assert that the medical condition she presented herself with at Mater Dei, would have been treated on the spot – by means of a very simple, straightforward procedure – in any other hospital in Europe; or indeed, anywhere else the entire world (with may- be a couple of exceptions here and there: including the last remaining 'uncontacted tribes', still living somewhere in the Ama- zon Jungle…) Now: to be fair, we must also concede that this procedure may be very 'simple', 'straightforward', and all that… but it isn't exactly what you would call 'pleasant', or 'desirable' (least of all in this particular case, where – unlike so many other similar circumstances – the pregnancy in ques- tion was both wanted, and planned.) But yes. The procedure itself is called an 'abortion'; and in this case – and many thousands of others like it – it is universal- ly considered a NECESSARY medical in- tervention, for at least three reasons I can think up off the top of my head. 1) Because the pregnancy itself would usually be (as it was, in this particular in- stance) 'unviable'; so if the intention really is to 'save the life of the foetus'… it's medi- cally a non-starter, anyway; 2) Because the longer the unviable preg- nancy is left to persist, uninterrupted – which is another way of saying: 'the longer it takes for the foetus to die a natural death, instead of an induced one' – the greater the chance that the mother might develop any number of potentially life-threatening complications… and; 3) Because, quite apart from the increased risk of infection, etc… the prolonged wait would only force the patient to go through precisely the sort of psychological trauma, that Andrea Prudente herself described in terms of 'torture', above. (And funnily enough, I was under this vague impression that the whole point of having such things as 'doctors', and 'nurses', and so on, was to actually TREAT people for trauma… and certainly not to inflict it on their patients themselves!) At this point, I am tempted to add a fourth: because the only realistic alterna- tive to an abortion, in circumstances such as these, is to… … well, to do what the medical establish- ment at Mater Dei so clearly did, over the past three weeks. (Or 'tried to do', anyway: for in the end, it had to be the patient's pri- vate insurance to step in, and rescue her from the nightmarish Catch-22 situation she had found herself caught up in. And something tells me that's another future law-suit, right there…) Up until that point, however, the hospi- tal's actual response was (presumably) the same it resorts to in ALL such cases… that is, to simply 'sit back and wait', until one of two things inevitably occurs. Either the foetus 'dies a natural death'… in which case, the problem would have simply resolved itself (though it could take a good few weeks to happen: throughout which time, the risk to the mother's health would be constantly increasing)…. …or else, the mother really DOES de- velop a potentially-fatal infection (as she lies there, for weeks and weeks, waiting for her unborn child's heartbeat to finally fade)… whereupon, Hey Presto! Suddenly, the doctors spring into action… to save the mother's life, from a threat that had actu- ally been caused by their own refusal to in- tervene at any earlier stage. It's a bit like… 'magic', isn't it? Almost as though St Thomas Aquinas himself de- scends from the Heavens above – at the precise instance when the bacterial in- fection takes root, please note – and pro- claims: "It's OK, you can go right ahead and abort that foetus now! I have a spe- cial, magical 'double-effect principle', that will miraculously assuage all your previous conscience issues… just like THAT!' In practice, however, the way it works is that… suddenly, the patient's life would be in REAL danger (as opposed to being 'placed at exponentially-growing risk', like it was only the second before) and… that's Jay Weeldreyer and Andrea Prudente