Pro Choice Activist Emily Galea speaks about her experience on being and becoming a pro-choice activist in our Country…
I don’t remember exactly when I became pro-choice, but I do remember when I became aware of my positionality as a woman.
From my earliest memories, I can recall experiencing sexism. At 9 years old, I remember forcing myself to carry 6 chairs at once out of the mere frustration of being told that only the “strong boys” can carry chairs. At 11 years old, walking down the road to take public transport for the first time, I was hooted at and called “sex” by a truck driver; the first of many catcalls. At 19, I was called a “tomboy” in a job interview for refusing to wear makeup and heels to work. So many more occurrences that I deemed unworthy to take note of.
All of these “small” occurrences built up into one sentiment: anger. At my being a woman, at the patriarchal system I was born into, at religion, at politicians, the world: anger became a way of coping with injustice.
As I got older, I learned about the horrors of what it truly means to be a woman in this country. From an increasing gender pay gap to a complete lack of bodily autonomy, a domestic violence system that often favours abusers, abstinence under the guise of sex education, expensive contraception, the normalising of forcing women/children to be pregnant, period poverty, high rates of sexual violence, the list goes on.
This insurmountable rage needed to be put to good use when arguing with friends and family no longer seemed to cut it: I needed to feel that I was actively unscrewing one cog of this hideous machine. At the age of around 20, I decided to dive headfirst into the pro-choice movement.
My thoughts were that, after all, if we don’t have the supportive structures for domestic violence victims or justice for rape victims (even children), then the least Malta could do is give them a reproductive right offered by every other EU country: abortion. The way I saw it, by restricting a woman’s control over her own body, the government itself is committing violence against women and forcing them to bear the consequences.
Since then, as a member of Young Progressive Beings, we’ve stirred the pot and churned out numerous highly discomforting dinner table conversations for a good part of the Maltese population. We’ve sat in the street and spoke to people from all walks of life, with some success and lots of failure. However, each time, the failure reduces, and people let their guard down more to listen. Every time this happens, that success is worth every failure.
We have conducted demonstrations on a number of occasions, however, one particular occasion this year stands out. This would be the court case where a passport belonging to a pregnant victim of domestic violence was confiscated, due to her abusers claim that she intends to seek an abortion abroad. The case, as well as each individual implicated in the confiscation of her passport, unveiled the grim misogyny that lies within the fabric of our institutions. For one, she was a victim of abuse, yet treated as a criminal on the basis of doing something completely legal within Malta’s jurisdiction. Second, the very act of confiscating her passport directly implies that her abuser is a more reliable source regarding her own affairs. Of course, as an organisation (YPB) it was absolutely imperative that we acted, and fast. Each day that she was kept hostage, numerous breaches of human rights were being accepted. Consequently, we drew up various placards and signs, and sat outside of the court house to demand the release of her passport, threatening our daily return if our demands were not met.
Within 24 hours, she received her documents.
This was one incident that manifested the power of mobilising as well as the dire need for it in Malta. From small table stands to full blown events, YPB has been consistently active for over a year, challenging what the Maltese population has long accepted as fact.
After some time working in this field, I received a message from a friend wrought with anger and ready to fight back against the war on women’s bodies. She was frustrated and, like me, needed a productive path to channel that vexation. We outlined a plan to collect stories from women in Malta who have suffered under the blanket ban on abortion, as well as the experiences and thoughts of healthcare workers who feel that their patients’ care was being compromised, combined with a letter addressing “decision makers”. From that conversation with Laura Paris, a story-telling campaign for reproductive rights called “Dear Decision Makers” was born.
Since that conversation, we have compiled just under 50 experiences with the help of Break the Taboo Malta, using an anonymous portal to collect these stories. We’ve heard stories from all kinds of women, all with one thing in common: a lack of bodily autonomy. From coat-hangers to substance abuse, the situation is a far cry from what is portrayed by anti-choice media. Despite the heart-wrenching process of recounting such experiences, we believe that it is a necessary evil to combat a much greater one: the politicisation of women’s bodies. For this reason, we are endlessly grateful to every woman and healthcare worker brave enough to contribute to our document.
While this work has been extremely rewarding, it hasn’t come without challenges. Threats, insults, and gossip seem to follow us wherever we go. It isn’t a rare occurrence that pictures of our faces are plastered all over anti-choice Facebook groups, being called “nazis”, “satanists” and everything in between. In spite of this, I can’t think of a more supportive community than the pro-choice activist scene. This journey has given me some of my closest friends and best memories, all in the name of reproductive justice.
Want to join the fight? Contact Young Progressive Beings here: [email protected].
Want to share your story with “Dear Decision Makers”? Visit this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1U-EIeQyaAA6eagta57_ZS0k9k8feWL0KoUlRTNbR7B0/viewform?edit_requested=true
Emily Galea is a writer and feminist activist in Malta. She is the Vice-President of Young Progressive Beings, Project Co-lead of the Dear Decision Makers campaign, and MA student in Gender, Society & Culture at the University of Malta.
