Paper Short Abstract:

In this paper, we examine abortion stigmatisation in Malta and demonstrate how activists and people having abortions have been “unwriting” the dominant discourse of abortion as a stigmatising behaviour in the context of the cross-border circulation of pills and people seeking abortion care abroad.

Paper Abstract:

In this paper we investigate different kinds of mobilities – of people and pills – related to abortion seeking in Malta, where abortion is significantly legally restricted. Based on interviews with pro-abortion rights activists and Maltese people who had an abortion in the last three decades, and on our participation in pro-choice events, we illustrate how women and pregnant people overcome the legal and logistical barriers to accessing abortion in different historical and political moments. Women either travel to countries with legal abortion, or have a self-managed abortion through the help of abortion rights organisations, which provide them with information, support, and abortion pills. In this paper, we focus our analysis particularly on the issue of secrecy and abortion stigmatisation and demonstrate how activists and people having abortions in Malta have been “unwriting” and challenging the dominant discourse of abortion as a stigmatising behaviour. People having abortions may not consider abortion a crime or a sin, but often fear stigmatisation and legal prosecution and therefore tend to keep their abortion secret, which is difficult, because they have to travel abroad, or depend on pills shipped from other countries. Contrasting their forced silence, pro-choice organisations and the researchers collaborating with them hold public events, promote self-managed medication abortion, which allow people to have safe abortions without traveling abroad, and publish the anonymized stories of Maltese people having abortions. They thus contribute to “re-write” the history of abortion and destigmatize it in Malta, while fighting for women’s and pregnant people’s autonomy.