Author: lifenetwork

Declaring that an eight-cell human embryo is not a human being has a purpose. The idea is to convince people by spinning a tale – that the embryo is not human but only a product, a commodity, and being a product it can be used and abused in any way which the powers that be decide. Being a product it could be used with business as a means to an end and may be disposed of accordingly. This effort to reduce a human being to the level of a product also shows that individuals are now patting themselves on the back for having achieved the capacity to create and eugenically choose or reject human products and in their arrogance feeling as if they have achieved the status of a god. Arrogance of power goes very much with thinking that one is a god or demi-god and treating us mere ordinary mortals as the little people that we are.

Human Science shows us that the reality lies elsewhere. Cell biology and those who study it, as well as embryologists show that the life of a human being begins when the human ovum is fertilised by the human sperm cell. This is the real science and all other opinions are just that, opinions. A human embryo whether one cell, eight cells, 32 cells, blastocyst, eight weeks remains a human being. It remains a human being in its development to birth, childhood, and adulthood to old age until death. These are just different stages of the same human being.

Why is it a human being? That it is human is never in doubt as it is the result or fruit of the interaction between two other human beings and contains a human genetic blueprint. That it is a human organism is also not in doubt as it is moving under its own steam with a self-moving active potency to develop as all independent organisms do from the single cell amoeba to the trillion-cell human. This capacity to develop is attained the moment that the new genetic identity is fused inside the new embryo cell which gives it a new and unique human identity and allows development to start with the building of proteins necessary to its development and survival. Like in any other organism, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and continues to remain so until death. The Church has nothing to do with the defining moment of when we become human. The Church only insists that when science says that a human organism exists, that life should be protected and it has always done so. So much so that in the Middle Ages when the little science known then believed, according to Aristotle of ancient Greece, that human life started after 60 or 90 days of human embryological development, that was the time the Church believed that human life should be protected. However, science has now advanced sufficiently and shown us the truth, and those who now bring in the Church to confuse matters, obviously have other motives in mind.

A human embryo is fully a human being, a human organism and natural reason tells us that if it is fully human then it should be defended and it is a prima facie right to protect it. Therefore, it should not be destroyed or forced to lose its dignity such as by freezing which both kills embryos and destroys their human dignity.

However, the human embryo is entirely a human being and also a fully human person. Those who point out a distinction here only do so to lay a trap for fools. Personhood is considered an individual member of the human species, so any individual member of the human species is enough to make him or her, a person. Personhood objectively defined means any individuated being of a rational nature, a self-reflecting nature. This nature is attained during fertilisation when the unique genetic and epigenetic features of the new human individual are laid down together with this self-moving potency to develop, a potency we refer to as the form, essence, nature or soul of the human being. It is this rational nature of each human being which make it a person and not the individual functions that are exhibited by this nature or form in matter. We do not always think, move or talk, but we are always human persons even in a comatose or anaesthetised state. Greek philosophy clearly laid down that a form and matter produced an individualised human substance. Boethius expressed this very clearly in his famous ‘Consolation of Philosophy’ as Persona est rationalis naturae individua substantia. An individual substance of a rational nature! This concept has been a principle of ancient Greek philosophy from the times of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus among others. When later Descartes in the 1600s came up with the dictum of cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am, he was in no way trying to reverse this definition of person. He was just pointing out that thinking and self-reflection were features that defined the human species from other species and was one of the functions exhibited specifically by our nature or form as a species. In effect it was always from the beginning of civilisation a concept of ‘sum ergo cogito’, I am therefore I think. Thinking is an ultimate expression of human nature not the other way round. Thinking comes from the nature, from the form, from the essence of humanity not the form of humanity from thinking! Therefore, a human embryo is also a human person by nature of being a human organism not only a simple human cell as some would have us believe and in the process subjectively reversing four thousand years of philosophy.

The subjective corruption of the definition of person and also now of the definition of the human organism is just a feeble attempt of those who want to render the human being and person simply as a human product. Being a human product to be used and abused according to the dictates of others in order to return to the times of slavery when human beings were just products. This attitude is borne out of an arrogance of power, idiocy and the wish to make human beings a source of commercial profit, an end for business and money. Those who expound it have other interests at heart, definitely not the interests of human dignity. The interest of human dignity is clearly expressed in our Constitution. Every human person has a right to life. Our Constitution defines the limits of the right to life specifically when such a life is intentionally threatened with intended malignant violence by another, so that the right to self-defence from a bad intentioned violator arises. In pointing out this only exception, our Constitution also underlines that the right to innocent human life is an absolute right and ultimately this is the principle which our government plans to do away with for obvious reasons, and to pave the way for future assaults on innocent human life!

 michael.asciak@parlament.mt

Dr Asciak is Senior Lecturer II in Applied Science at MCAST.

Ref: http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2018-05-20/newspaper-opinions/It-is-a-human-product-not-a-human-being-6736190106

In the debate for or against the government’s decision to change the Embryo Protection Act, the people terribly caught in the crossfire are the “so described” infertile couples.  These persons have been used and abused by government as the justification to open the floodgates of change to the Embryo Protection Act, despite the wide and serious underlying consequences, on the same families, their children, the respect and dignity of very human life and the opposition of professional, academics and the public at large.

Why “so described” rather than simply infertile couples?  I think describing a couple infertile is demeaning, presented as inferior simply because they are childless.   We make them feel inferior, every time we meet them and pass an insensitive comment like “ghadkom bla tfal?” 

I come from parents that, not by design, spent their first 10 married years childless.  They loved children, wanting their own, but it seemed we were not intending to come.   Why after 10 years the floodgates opened and they had first my sister, then my brother and then me is anyone’s guess.

Were they too stressed, wanting children too much, was is it physical? Frankly I don’t know.   What I do know is that the period of so called infertility made my parents no less human beings that any other human beings who had children.  Who we are has nothing to do with whether we are parents or not.

There are many couples out there who are without children, who have accepted lovingly their state of being, and found a different purpose to their life and marriage.  All of a sudden, they are being told that they have something missing, they need these amendments to solve it, the miracle of embryo freezing.

Many of these people have already solved it- they live happy lives in full acceptance of their reality.  They found meaning in what they do, the value of their love for each other and others outside their family, many times in voluntary service, with people in need, acts of charity and other meaningful interests.  Why are we telling these people they are inferior?   We are so lost in presenting children as the be all and end all of one’s existence that we are insulting the same people we say we want to help.

We forget that there are men and women who actually choose not to marry and have children to give themselves in service to others.  Who can say that Mother Teresa or Dun Gorg Preca were childless?  We all can have a good purpose in life, find fulfilment in what we do.  It is also wrong to present children as the guarantee of happiness.  Unfortunately, the world is filled with stories of rejection, stories of parents who share their sadness at having been abandoned by their children, parents who lost their children through severe sicknesses or saw them fail and fall into addictions, crime, suicide despite the love they gave them and which make these realities all the more painful. 

Childless couples have suffering and parents have suffering.  Pope Francis says that “Jesus teaches us to live the pain by accepting the reality of life with trust and hope, bringing the love of God and neighbour, even in suffering: and love transforms everything.”

I am not arguing that a couple that have fertility challenges should not seek help, even medical help in an attempt to have their own child.  However, in doing so they need to take care of each other as a couple, their health and all the children they will create with the IVF technology, even the frozen ones.   The present Act finds this right balance, unfortunately the new amendments compromise on life of the children that will be created and frozen, and in the case of gamete donation, introduce a third person in the relationship which can cause severe stress and consequences on the marriage itself.  Studies have shown that many husbands fail to bond with a child that their wife has had through another man and their marriages tend to break up.  Knowing that his wife bore a child with the sperm of another can be a very humiliating experience.  In a heated moment, not rare in a relationship, unloving words are said like “because I’m his mother” as though “you’re not his father” or “what do you know of my child” as though not yours too.  These sentiments are many times hidden in the subconscious just waiting for a trigger to surface and manifest themselves in a painful way.

If government really wants to help childless couples, there are other more effective, less risky and morally correct ways.  Government knows that the proposed changes to the IVF bill will only marginally improve the chances of success.  Minister Fearne stated that from the last cycle of 26 couples only six managed to become pregnant, making the point that with freezing two other couples may become pregnant.   In simple terms the minister is saying that embryo freezing increases the chance of the 20 couples by 10%. Undeniably despite our success rates compare well with many countries, we all would like to see more couples succeed.  However, improving rates cannot be at the cost of lives, ignoring the moral and ethical concerns, surrounding embryo freezing, gamete donation and surrogacy, at the cost of asking couples to put their children (embryos) in a freezer, very likely to be forgotten. People are not statistics; Government should stop over-selling these amendments as the magic wand that will make infertile couples fertile as improvements will be very marginal.

If government is serious about helping the 20 couples, and others in similar situations, it should help them with providing safe, secure and affordable adoption opportunities.  Many couples have found their parental fulfilment in adoption and fostering.   Adoption is costly, in a very “jungle” -like situation. Adopting a child from outside Malta (as not much opportunities from Malta) costs around €40,000.  There are no regulated agencies, you don’t know for what you are paying, and no guarantees.   For a start government should set up an agency that opens new opportunities from where children can be adopted making it more certain, cheaper for prospective parents, and ensuring that no shady activity is involved.  The government should also address the legal difficulties surrounding unwanted Maltese children trapped in institutional or fostering homes when adoption is in their best interest.  Encourage fostering not just financially but also providing the child and the fostering family with more stability.

If we are serious about helping these couples, let’s use our brains and efforts, time in Parliament and money to effectively help them and not sell them false hope.   Let’s call a spade a spade it is becoming more apparent that the government’s real motive is in not infertile couples, whose chances will not increase much more with freezing embryos, but same sex-couples.  Same-sex couples are not infertile couples, while they have every right to their choices, society cannot be blamed for what nature has dictated. 

Ref: http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2018-05-21/newspaper-opinions/Helping-childless-couples-6736190173

I know that the anguished cry of our fellow embryonic human beings (April 24) is being heard by others too. There are those who do not hear it and will not hear. They block their ears and endo-secrete morphine into their moribund conscience.

There are those who do not see a human embryo as human and will not see. They cover their eyes (the childish gesture) and bury their head in the sand (the sand of their own petty – and party – interests and public approval, even adulation). They do not want to perceive the truth.

There are those who may well hear and see but are struck dumb by cowardice and/or slavery to the lie.

One need not be a moral theologian (as I am) to perceive and acknowledge the truth (absolute, immutable, not subject to, nor influenced by, anything or anyone). Honest reasoning would bring the honest person to the conclusion that the very concept of mores and ethics is related to the existence of truth that is out of reach of meddling hands.

This is alien to someone schooled in post-modernistic relativism with their “your truth/my truth” nonsense. Deception, distraction and diversion characterise their modus operandi. The hijacking of meaning, Humpty Dumpty style, is a hallmark of their philosophy.

“When I say a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, “it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less” (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland).

These, with devilish determination, will drive roughshod over you and/or will plunge their putrid death-dealing policies down your throat, while screaming that they are being imposed upon. Oh, the lie!

One need not be a doctor (as I am) to acknowledge the embryonic human being. Honest, logical reasoning will bring you to it, and any honest mother will teach you.

I know that I am in very good company in being appalled by the barbaric aggression and insult (which is what embryo freezing is), inflicted on my embryonic fellow human beings – this by my professional brothers, we who are privileged with the trust and faith of our fellow human beings to heal (physiologically, psychologically and spiritually) but first and foremost and fundamentally, to do no harm.

Need I spell it out? If you must count infertility as a disease, nevertheless you may not treat that disease of your patient by assaulting the life of another.

This is the fundamental principle. Oh that word again!

In our profession, we are fundamentalists. The “do no harm” rule trumps all other claims of benefit. Those seeking to procure a child through a procedure that involves embryo freezing must be clearly taught what this entails along with details of survivability and the quality of life expected on thawing. Moreover, explanation and justification must be made to the procurer as to whom is sent to the freezer.

Let the doctor be reminded of the noble, sacred ethos of his art; he is not a salesman nor a technician. The public needs to know that there is a very lucrative business in babies: embryo factories and banks for the harvesting of stem cells, organs etc. Indeed he will bear special responsibility for this barbarism. I plead with doctors concerned: desist.

Let all those who, in any way, aid and abet embryo freezing be aware that they are complicit in the act and its effect.

Let members of Parliament be aware that any vote of theirs that leads to legalising/decriminalising embryo freezing know that ultimately they will have to answer to God not only for the barbaric, inhuman act and its effects but also for the fact that this facilitates the legalising/decriminalising of abortion. That is not the end of this serpent.

Due to the commodifying of human beings, eventually no one unable to defend oneself would be safe in hospital.

Let the bishops lead their priests in preaching these aforementioned truths from the pulpit. If you do not use it, you shall lose it. Failure to do so places their own souls in jeopardy.

Let anyone who feels hurt by what I have written try very, very hard to turn his gaze away from his navel and consider someone else and then, humanity. Keep trying very, very hard to recognise the hurt, insult and injury (physical, psychological, spiritual) inflicted on their human embryonic fellow by that inhuman act of embryo freezing.

Then they are to keep trying very, very hard to realise that the inhuman act of embryo freezing declares “open day” to other acts of inhumanity (abortion, euthanasia… eugenics).

I shall not be distracted nor deflected by red herrings thrown about nor straw men set up, being a former military officer, I recognise these for what they are: feint attacks and smokescreens and dummy targets. By the way, if you are not a fundamentalist then you are a superficialist, a trivialist and a subjectivist – a pathetic character.

As for religion, well everyone has a soul that adheres to religion. Mine is the Catholic faith, yours may be the “Me-first-and-über-alles” faith. You bring your religion into your stand point, as you must, as do I. Here is God’s word for those Catholic claimants, who fail to witness to Christ: “Whoever denies Me before others I will deny before My Father.” (Mt 10, 33). I am focused on the incoming cruise missile: the Maltese government’s proposed legislation on IVF/embryo freezing. Unless this proposed legislation is voted out of Parliament, this ‘missile’ will blast the way wide open for the reign of Inhumanity.

In summary:

The embryo is denied its inherent and intrinsic humanity. The embryo is not acknowledged as a human being, but counted as a thing (a blob of cells), the property of another person or entity. Embryos, then are not counted as “untermenschen” but as “nicht-menschen”, not servile persons but non-persons.

The arbitrary withdrawal of human status, dignity and rights could then be applied to any stage in the life cycle.

The dehumanised being, stripped of humanity, becomes an object, a commodity, a resource and, probably, a medical cobbler’s plaything.

With eugenics the human race becomes the play thing.

Would that anyone who has the Prime Minister’s ear spell this out to him and would that the Prime Minister do the honourable thing and stop in his tracks.                                                                                     

Peter Micallef-Eynaud is a medical doctor, theologian and former military officer.

In his article Eight cells in the lab  (May 2) Mark Sant, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, a consultant at the Assisted Reproductive Technology Clinic at Mater Dei Hospital, said that “he wants to concentrate on the situation wherein a heterosexual couple come to me asking for help after several years of trying to conceive to no avail”. 

He wrote: “I don’t tell them that nature does not mean for them to complete their family.” That’s a very good compassionate approach from an obstetrician and gynaecologist.

He added: “The European Charter of Human Rights states that everyone has a right to health, and infertility is listed as a health issue, too.” That’s also a very good approach  to begin with.

He added further: “In the very same way that all specialists in medicine have an obligation to remain up to date in their area of expertise, to be able to offer the best possible care to their patients, we who work in infertility are no different.”

Sant seems to be keeping himself up to date selectively, only about one particular medical model to resolve the issue of infertility, the IVF and embryo freezing method. He  seems to be  totally  unaware of the natural method to infertility, another non-medical model. One may  ask a nutritionist and dietician on this, anywhere in  the world, including Malta, and he or she starts to talk at length on the great benefits of this model.

It is true, as Sant says, that the rate of infertility is increasing in many parts of the world, including Malta, and that many couples in particular, are desperate to conceive. Sant should have defined the main problem he was writing about – what are the causes of infertility – before  making gratuitous statements.

These causes are not only physiological to be treated by gynaecologists and obstetricians like Sant.

In  the description of “the best natural infertility treatment” by leading nutritionists and dieticians it includes poor nutrition, emotional stress, sexually transmitted diseases, thyroid disorders, medical conditions, eating disorders, excessive obesity, and hormonal problems.

Caffeine also can cause hormonal imbalances, dehydration and lead to mineral deficiencies. High consumption has been shown to interfere with fertility. Lowering caffeine or giving it up entirely is a smart idea when one is trying to get pregnant.

Drugs, like marijuana, can negatively affect fertility by making ovulation more difficult each month.

To cure infertility nutritionists and dieticians recommend not IVF and embryo freezing but eating a healing diet.

Another natural infertility treatment is to consume more fertility-promoting supplements.

The good news, nutritionists say, is that most couples will eventually conceive, without costly and often invasive infertility treatments. The success rate here is about 80 per cent. The success rate of IVF and embryo freezing is about 25 per cent.

If Sant knows about the natural method to fertility, and as a gynaecologist he must know about it,  it is obvious he is deliberately discarding it,  as frozen embryos are eventually discarded  in his medical model to infertility. 

At a certain point  in his article, Sant said that “he would have loved to be acclaimed as the Maltese pioneer to have put forward certain beliefs on this subject”, and  then quoted Fr Peter Serracino Inglott, a philosopher, not a scientist, who, according to Sant, “did not equate the early embryo to a human being and had no qualms with embryo freezing”.

He added further: “And I’m not even mentioning science.” That was a stark admission that he is leaving science, altogether, out of the fertility/infertility problem.

Notwithstanding, he felt presumptuously comfortable in making a gratuitous scientific declaration that “eight cells in the laboratory is not a human being. It has the potential to become one using very extraordinary measures. The potential ‘to be’ is not equivalent to ‘being’.”

The deputy prime minister said it before.   

Sant seems to possess the credentials of a champion of the throw-away culture at its best. 

In 1960, Bernard Nathanson, an obstetrician and gynaecologist like Sant, was for a time the director of the Centre for Reproductive and Sexual Health (CRASH), seemingly also like Sant at Mater Dei Hospital. CRASH was then the largest freestanding abortion facility in the world.

In 1974 Nathanson wrote: “I am deeply troubled by my own increasing certainty that I had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths.”

Nathanson  developed in 1996 what he called the “vector theory of life”, which states that from the moment of conception there exists “a self-directed force of life that, if not interrupted, will lead to the birth of a human baby”.

In 1981, a United States Senate judiciary subcommittee invited experts to testify on the question of when life begins. Jerome Lejeune, professor of genetics at the University of Descartes in Paris and the discoverer of the chromosome pattern of Down Syndrome, told the judiciary subcommittee that “after fertilisation has taken place a new human being has come into being”. 

He stated that this “is no longer a matter of taste or opinion”  and “not a metaphysical contention: it is plain experimental evidence… Each individual  has a very neat beginning at conception.”

Sant seems not to have heard about Nathanson and Lejeune. 

He also lambasted all those who do not agree with him: “All the vociferous anti-IVF-reform campaigners have one thing in common. They have staunch extreme Catholic beliefs.” He forgot he had previously quoted a  Catholic philosopher-priest to prove his point.

Very respectable local institutions like the Malta Paediatric Association, the Faculty of Social Well-Being of the University of Malta, and 100 academics practically from all the university faculties,  expressed their views on this subject publicly and categorically, very contrary to his own.    

There is also adoption and fostering for childless couples. The government should subsidise these services much more, especially adoption.  

This newspaper should be congratulated for advising that “women who eat fast food and little or no fruit take longer to become pregnant” (May 5) while also  showing the beauty and greatness  of adoption services in its May issue of Pink magazine.

Sant should really lead. He should work also for the strengthening of these services to help infertile couples have children. That’s his pledge to them.

Tony Mifsud is coordinator, Malta Unborn Child Movement.

An embryo is a new, unique individual produced when an egg from a woman is fertilised by a sperm from a man. An embryo is made up of cells, a new born baby from a larger number of cells and an adult is made of an even larger number of cells. Indeed, one needs to watch out for terms such as ‘fertilized eggs’, ‘fertilized cells’, or ‘cells from fertilized eggs’  being used instead of the term ‘embryo’, as this may desensitise us to the fact that the embryo is a new human life.

The proposed Bill regarding embryos discriminates against these individuals both when they are still embryos but also way after they are born.

It also forces already vulnerable IVF couples to choose between increasing their chances of becoming parents but then donating their extra embryos for adoption by unknown individuals, or doing IVF with a decreased chance of success.

Research conducted abroad shows that over 80 per cent of IVF couples would rather let their embryos die or be donated to research, than having to live with the knowledge of having their biological children being brought up by people who they have no say in choosing. Can we blame them?

Moreover, both the children of the couple and those adopted will essentially know they have full siblings who they can never know about or get to know.

People born as a result of embryo adoption will have the right to access the anonymised medical records of their biological parents.

But, anonymous records cannot be updated. This means that biological children of a 20-year-old donor who was in good health at the time of donation but still died young from an inherited medical condition will have no clue as to what their risks are.

Under normal circumstances, of course, the children of such a person would be tested and have their health managed. But no such luck for these children.

Another reality for extra embryos is that with the introduction of sperm and egg donation, the chances of the embryos being adopted is small in the first place.

Most same-sex couples, that have been mentioned as those interested in adopting, would rather have the biological child of one of them, given the choice. Especially since the frozen embryos that will be up for adoption will be those not chosen for the couple producing them, i.e. not the ‘best’.

This means most embryos will be left to disintegrate, die or otherwise be lost.

The fact is that thawing embryos already kills one out of three and apart from this, alarms and apparati can fail, as we have seen lately in the case where several couples lost their embryos.

Sperm and egg donation create another set of problems which can affect both the couples receiving the donation and their future children. The Bill proposes that there would be an Embryo Authority which will licence clinics offering the service.

However, it leaves the vetting of who can donate up to the licensed clinics.

The clinic will have to send all records to the authority but donations will be anonymous. So, how will the authority be able to prevent a person donating more than once and prevent half siblings having children between themselves in future?

It is not like in our tiny Malta the chances of meeting is small.

The possibility of inheritance of serious genetic conditions would be considerable in these cases. Also, how will the clinics vet for genetic conditions in the first place?

These are serious problems which the Bill does not even begin to address.

Presently, pregnant mothers are tested for common genetic conditions. If a mother is found to be a carrier of a condition the father is tested. In the case of anonymous sperm donation this will be impossible. This likely possibility is also not addressed in the new Bill.

Considering all the issues and all the individuals that will have their lives affected by this Bill, more time and care should be given in order to best protect all parties involved.

Rushing through the process, as presently done, is both reckless and insane.

Svetlana Schembri Wismayer is a Junior College senior lecturer.

As women’s rights activists call for the legalisation of abortion, particularly in cases of rape, Lara Sierra, herself a rape victim, speaks to a pro-life campaigner, born of rape, about her international campaign to remove the parental rights of rapists. It is out of gratitude that her life was somehow protected that she now wants to protect others.

Rebecca Kiessling arrives in a sparkly jumper, with her big blonde hair and an American drawl. Best of all is her outlandish, multi-coloured, phone-shaped handbag, which actually works as a phone. But underneath her feminine flamboyance is a soft-spoken woman, with the ability to move mountains with her words.

“I am a pro-life activist and a lawyer,” she explains. “I have been working on a law for 10 years, which [Barack] Obama signed in 2016. It is called the Rape Survivor Child Custody Act – to terminate the parental rights of rapists without requiring a rape conviction.” 

Yes, that is correct. Rapists have parental rights to any offspring that are a consequence of their crime. Yet, without a rape conviction, how are they proven guilty? 

“I deal with this all over the world,” Rebecca, a guest of Life Network, answers. “In other circumstances, you do not need to have a conviction to remove the rights of a parent. For child molestation, or child abuse, you need a heightened standard of evidence. In the US, we call it clear and convincing evidence. 

“We looked at the law in Malta in 2016 with a team of lawyers and there is a judicial standard that allows for the termination of parental rights, so it would be the same for mothers with children born of rape. It’s the same way I’ve dealt with this in the US and other countries I’ve worked with,” Rebecca explains.

“This law was designed to be part of a package for gender violence… Some legislators question how often these cases actually occur? But that is such an ignorant view. They don’t understand how prevalent rape is. It is wildly under-reported.” 

Statistics worldwide make for depressing reading. In the US, 994 perpetrators out of 1,000 reported cases of rape will walk free, mostly because victims will drop their charges for one reason or another. In the UK, only 15 per cent of cases of sexual abuse are reported to the police. In Malta, around 160 cases of rape were reported in the last decade, but that is not at all an indication of the amount that actually happen. 

Unreported rape statistics exist across the whole of Europe: it is estimated that about 67 per cent go unreported, yet this average is woefully inaccurate for each country. It includes, for example, the UK, which had a 173 per cent rise in reported sexual violence between 2008 and 2015.

Not in a hurry to go back to the UK after reading that? Don’t be; high reporting statistics are not necessarily bad news and could be an indication that victims trust their politicians and police enough to know they will be safe and protected when reporting an act of violence against them. 

Hopefully, what happened at the end of 2017 will make a dramatic difference to this too. The Harvey Weinstein revelations set off a cascade of revelatory stories of sexual abuse across the Western world, including the ensuing #metoo campaign and yet more stories involving high-profile figures against males, females and children no less. 

Rebecca sighs. “The problem with #metoo is that women whose perpetrators are still at large were unable to speak out. They had to use a pseudonym, or not speak out at all.”

It’s a valid point, and more evidence that women are often too fearful to report a rape. I was one of the luckier ones. I was drugged and raped by someone who lived on the other side of the world; who had very few personal details about me. Yet I did not go to the police either. Why not? Because, as many other victims feel, I felt shame, guilt and disgust at myself. 

There was clear evidence that I had been attacked; I awoke with blood on my clothes, bruises on my thighs and bite marks on my torso. Yet the mental state that perpetuated over the next few years was one of such self-loathing that I came to believe the attack was my fault. This is a symptom of trauma. And in cases of rape, where other symptoms often also include memory loss and low levels of self-esteem, no wonder so few victims go to the police. 

Since making my story known, I have had many people coming to me, privately and secretly, confessing crimes committed against them too, and none of them had reported their attacks either. This is proof, then, that the problem exists in Malta, even if we don’t have the statistics on it. And, in a bitter twist of fate, this reluctance to report an attack is a massive thumbs-up for the attackers. It keeps them walking free and confidently continuing their wicked ways.

Rebecca too has her own experience of rape. “I was conceived in rape and put up for adoption,” she explains. “My birth mother was abducted at knife point by a serial rapist. She never knew who he was. I found out a year-and-a-half ago, due to new DNA technology, and we both hoped that he would either be in prison, or dead. But no, he has never been convicted. 

“I was frequently sexually assaulted, aged 10, by an adult, and I was also raped by a boyfriend when I was 19. He broke my jaw,” she pauses. “I’ve never spoken about this in Malta.” 

Rebecca’s life story is heart-breaking, yes, but inspirational too. “I met my birth mother when I was 19, after deciding to find out who she was. I received non-identifying information, which had all sorts of information about her. But all it said about my father is that he was Caucasian and of large build. I felt devalued. I felt like I now had to justify my own existence. 

I called my case worker and asked her if my birth mother had been raped and she said: ‘I didn’t want to tell you.’ 

“I felt like my life had become a feather, just floating, and I wanted to feel safe and grounded that she would never have aborted me. But no, when we met, she told me she had sought out two illegal abortions. I felt like I was not supposed to be there; I just happened to be saved. It’s out of gratitude for my life being protected that I want to protect others. I wasn’t lucky, but I was protected. Legality matters.”

Rebecca always wanted to be a lawyer. “Absolutely! My adopted dad took me to see a film called The Verdict, and straight away, I wanted to be that hero and defend victims. People used to say: ‘Oh you want to be a lawyer… Does that mean you’re a feminist?’ I thought, yes, I believe in women; I want to defend women’s rights. But then I started to hear that feminists are pro-abortion, and I thought, what does being a feminist have to do with killing babies? It didn’t make sense. One of the great things about women is how loving and nurturing they are. This is what makes us special.”

It is undeniable that abortion is not loving, nor nurturing, but it is important to state the other side of the argument too. The Women’s Rights Foundation, for example, calls abortion a human right, which should be given at least to save a woman’s life, to preserve her physical and mental health, in cases of rape and incest and in the eventuality of fatal foetus impairment.

It has also called for the decriminalisation of abortion so that Maltese women who access abortion in other countries, or through telemedicine, do not face criminal proceedings and risk three years imprisonment especially when accessing local health services for possible post-abortion complications.

It is an interesting point; and a valid one when considering the amount of women taking a quick ‘holiday’ to the UK or Sicily in times of desperation. That figure is unknown, but according to Dr Miriam Sciberras, pro-life activist for Life Network, there were about 90 reported cases of illegal abortions in Malta in 2016. 

She, along with the rest of Life Network, are launching a helpline, and meeting groups for women who are in pregnancy crisis. “We believe that anything that threatens human life is an abuse,” she says. Yet their line will also support women who are struggling post-abortion. 

Life Line is a 24-hour, fully confidential, pregnancy support network for females in crisis, regarding pregnancy, negative pregnancy results and post-abortion healing, including for family and friends. 

The support is available via an online chat and telephone service. It aims to provide a warm, non-judgemental and friendly interface to help empower women to make life-affirming choices.

“A big problem is that people are against abortion except in cases of rape,” Rebecca says. “What’s more, a lot of rape victims are seen as bad feminists and bad rape victims when they decide to keep their child. The children are called ‘Satan’s spawn’ and ‘demon child’… Yet many women come to me asking for forgiveness. ‘Would my baby forgive me for aborting it?’ I tell them that in heaven, there are no more tears.”

People tend to use biblical references when seeking moral direction, and yet, Rebecca says, it was her atheist adopted grandmother who is responsible for her pro-life beliefs. 

“Being pro-life does not require a biblical base. I am a child of God and I am also a child of a rape victim. I know my worth and it is not that I am a lawyer, and I don’t have to show you my finances. 

“I have a wonderful husband and I have five children. When my daughter was six, she wrote a book, which she showed me. Inside, she had written: ‘Conceived in rape is not bad. Because that’s my mum’.”

You can’t argue with that. And really, it is quite simple. Rape is bad; life is good. But unfortunately, life is also complicated, challenging, and at times, extraordinarily difficult. Women often get the raw end of the deal. But, really, that just makes them stronger, and more understanding of others.

Ref: https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20180511/life-features/i-am-a-child-of-god-and-i-am-also-a-child-of-a-rape-victim.678479?utm_source=tom&utm_campaign=top5&utm_medium=widget

The Pro Life movement has hit out at the way the discussion regarding proposed amendments to the Embryo Protection Act is being handled.

The Movement, in a letter sent to the President, the Prime Minister, the Opposition Leader, and the Speaker of the House, noted that while “Health Minister Chris Fearne reportedly told the House Business Committee that there would be wide public consultation before the third reading of the bill, it seems government is planning a vote for 4 July.”

They took note of the long Parliamentary plenary sessions which took place to close the second reading of the bill, so that the Consideration of Bills Committee will then meet in plenary form to consider the bill. They note, however, that this procedure will not allow for direct interventions by interested parties and experts, who would be limited to advising an MP.

They said that to their understanding, this is not the ideal way by which a free widespread consultation should take place, arguing that it limits participation to MPs.

They argue that this method will force interested parties to identify with one side or another of the political divide, reducing their credibility and exposing them to criticism that they had a partisan agenda.

The Movement argued that experts and interested parties should have the possibility of putting their arguments forward without political affiliation. “Our aim remains to help infertile couples, with full respect to life and the fundamental rights of children who are born through this technology, while paying attention to moral and ethical considerations.”

As such, they have asked Parliament to consider adopting a discussion method that allows widespread participation from MPs, experts and interested parties in the spirit of the President’s request for consultation.

They argue that the President had asked for a discussion with all parties, not a debate limited to the confines of Parliament, in order for all voices to be heard.

The signatories of the letter include representatives from the Life Network Foundation, the Malta Unborn Child Foundation, the Gift-Of-Life Foundation, the Association of Pediatricians, the National Council of Women, the Cana Movement, and others.

The full letter can be read here.

Ref: http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2018-05-09/local-news/Pro-Life-Movement-wants-more-than-a-political-debate-on-Embryo-Protection-Act-proposals-6736189561

I have been following the debate on the amendments to the IVF law with great interest and am proud of the many men and women who have contributed to the debate – their devotion to the unborn and their sympathy for infertile couples too. It is not an easy subject to discuss as there are many emotions involved. However, the most important emotion is that of wanting to protect the innocent and voiceless unborn child.

I have worked for many years in this field, mainly because I have a love for children and feel they need protection and love from the earliest stages in the womb.  We just cannot treat babies as commodities to suit the adults. It is just not fair.

As an example of IVF, I quote a couple I know who went to England for IVF treatment. They now have a beautiful 18-month-old child and four frozen embryos in England. The wife does not want more children so what is going to happen to those four frozen embryos – tell me?

Will they get “adopted” by a British couple? Get thrown away or be left to die? No, that is not ethical. Malta must not go down that route. Surely as a nation we care a lot about our children as demonstrated in the Manifestation for Life on April 22 in Valletta. Along with many others, I was there, aged 80, carrying the white balloons that symbolised the unborn embryos.  

The crowd was enthusiastic about our speakers and Joanna Rose told us to not go down that route of frozen embryos and gamete donation but to be the people we are now – loving and protecting children from the embryonic stage. 

The organiser of the event and chairman of Life Network Malta, Miriam Sciberras, was passionate in what she said about the present “amendments” to the Embryo Protection Act and spoke of the complications that will arise were they to be implemented.

She is tireless in her defence of the unborn and I have never seen such devotion and commitment as hers to this cause. 

Malta deserves better and I ask the public to come out and protest against this ghastly and inhuman situation we now find ourselves in. The President does not agree with the rushed approach to this issue.

The Commissioner for Children should be ashamed of herself for agreeing to a Bill that harms children at the embryonic stage. She, if anyone, should be standing up for the unborn. Maybe, she feels that she has to submit to her lord and master who gave her the job. Poor Malta! What are we coming to? 

It was once a wonderful country. We are defacing its character in more ways than one. Come on Malta. Sweden does not allow surrogacy and they are a very liberal and ‘progressive’ nation so there must be something really worrisome about such a development.

Why do we not improve the lives of women in crisis pregnancy with the amount of surplus money that this government boasts about? That will increase the nation’s population in a healthy way.

‘Creating babies’ will lead to untold psychological messes. I explained this to Health Minister Chris Fearne on Facebook when I asked him how he would feel if he were conceived in such a manner – egg from A, sperm from B, womb from C to be delivered to couple D.

It’s all wrong and a stop must be put to this insane idea. I hope that the debate will be calm and reasonable and not madly rammed through come what may. 

Malta does not deserve this. We are a peaceful loving people who are proud of our children and want the best for them, even if this demands making many sacrifices at times.

So, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, if you really love Malta, listen to the voice of the Maltese who cry out for compassion for the unborn.

Mary Hilda Camilleri is a retired music teacher who worked in pro-life organisations in London and now with Life Network Foundation.

Controversies arise when the term ‘person’ is used to denote a definite moment in the life cycle of a human being.

It is indeed a philosophical question with possible legal and ethical connotations. It seeks to decide who is and who is not a person and thus aims to establish that someone is a human being but at the same time not a person, even though one is part of the community.

Biologically, human beings are classified as members of the homo sapiens species. On the other hand, the question of what is life or non-life has a purely scientific answer, as life is described as a condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms.

An embryo is a genetically unique, biologically human and has intrinsic biological properties whose blueprint dictates deve­lopment and growth. It is definitely alive, and the term pre-embryo is an invented, unscientific term. The precursors of life are amino acids which, after all, are the building blocks of DNA. 

Trying to define the scientific term ‘human being’ from a philosophical perspective drives one into a bottomless pit. The terms ‘human being’ and ‘person’ are not the same, as they denote different things in two different specialties.

In the parliamentary debates on the protection of the human embryo, the government is mixing the facts of science with myths, and has gone so far as to quote the late Prof. Peter Serracino Inglott with a political twist.

Gilbert Scott, a prominent development biologist, states: “The entity created by fertilisation is indeed a human embryo, and it has the potential to be a human adult. Whether these facts are enough to accord it personhood is a question by opinion, philosophy and theology, rather than by science.”

To put it bluntly, various philosophical thinkers have tried to give an answer to the question: When does the unborn child become a person: at conception, at birth, somewhere in between or much later in life?

There a number of schools of philosophical thought on personhood, among them John Noonan, Mary Anne Warren, The Social Criterion, and Peter Singer. Prof. Serracino Inglott in 2015 had hypnotised his own opinion. It is truly unbecoming of government to make political capital by mixing science with a personal philosophical statement.

The most recent is The Gradient Theory. It suggests that personhood fits within a spectrum of a variety of degrees. An embryo has less personhood than a foetus, a newborn would have more personhood than both, an infant more than an unborn foetus, a child more still, and so on. Therefore, even if this theory does not deny the personhood of any being, it permits discrimination based upon the level of perceived personhood. Does this mean that when a person sleeps, that individual is less of a person?

The concept of a person is one of the most difficult terms to define and denotes rights and obligations. It is an argument that has been ongoing for decades. Charles Taylor, and others who have the same line of thinking, put forward this definition: “A person is a being who has a sense of self, has a notion of the future and past, can hold values, make choices; in short, can adopt life-plans. At least, a person must be the kind of being who is capable of all this, however damaged these capacities may be in practice.”

This statement defines personhood as a function of feelings, awareness, experiences and behaviour. In this approach we become and may cease to be a person, while we remain a human being all the time. It follows that since the unborn has none of these capacities, they are not a person, and killing the unborn is not seriously wrong. This infers that an embryo and foetus do not have a right to life.

Science factually affirms the contrary. Similarly, it does not make sense to say that a person comes to existence when the functionality of a human is manifested. Good sense distinguishes between what one is and what one does, between actual and function, thus between being a person and functioning as a person. In my opinion, defining personhood in terms of function is inaccurate and wrong.

A human being is a person because one is actually a person, and not because one functions as a person. Obviously, this capacity to function develops gradually in a human’s life and continues throughout one’s lifetime, as all persons have the potential to grow emotionally and intellectually. Likewise, an embryo is a human and a person, who has a natural inherent capacity, and will gradually develop this functionality.

All human beings are actual persons and it is their functioning that is potential. The embryo is not a potential person but a person with much potential. Our embryonic beginning, as members of the human species, starts off a process of development of a person and not a process of development into a person. The difference between the individual in its adult stage and in its zygotic stage is not one of personhood but of development.

Life should be protected because it is the right thing to do. Humanity dictates it. 

Godfrey Farrugia is an MP for Partit Demokratika.

Ref: https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20180506/opinion/When-can-we-say-that-a-human-being-is-a-person-Godfrey-Farrugia.678333

Mark Sant is an old friend and a top specialist in his field. I have no doubt that the feelings he has for couples suffering the pain of infertility and his wishes to help them are genuine (May 2).

Sant sees people in this stage and time of life and, as a medical doctor, wishes to care for them in this stage. I on the other hand am a cell biologist and study human cells on a day-to-day basis so I understand cells, even when the cells are forming the very beginning of a human life.

This was attested to by 23 scientists including professors in molecular biology, genetics and cell biology and published in this newspaper. Standard embryology texts like Langman’s embryology, which both I myself as well as Sant studied from, also state this clearly.

None of these scientists (including myself) could be considered the ultra- Catholic right. I for one, barely made any noise, for example, about the campaign for divorce, or the choice for gay marriage. I am glad LGBTIQ people are able to declare their love for each other in the same way I can for my better half.

I am sure many of the people hailing from Sant’s own political or medical background similarly disagree with him, independent of their political or religious beliefs.

In fact, the Malta Paediatric Association (child specialist doctors) came out with a statement defending life from conception. They too, maybe, seeing the child in their medical practice, are much more understanding of the development of life in its earlier stages.

However, the record must be set straight. No one can stop our country from eventually deciding to freeze embryos, if that is what our politicians believe, even though I wish to live in a country which respects life in all its beauty and fragility, something already being lost in the way elderly people are sometimes treated by our health services.

What I do not however accept, is misquoting the truth or being economical with it to manipulate public opinion.

For example, websites and papers like the one which I think Sant used to find the opinions of other faiths regarding the embryo, do not only indicate the opinions he quoted, i.e. that of Muslims and Jews. It also indicates that Hindus, like Catholics, believe that personhood starts with conception.

 Protestant Christians generally do not have a consensus opinion with some using the 14-day cut-off, while others agree with protecting the embryo from conception. Even the opinion of Muslims varies.

Together with Buddhists, many of them, believe in fact that personhood can start from implantation (i.e. less than 10 days, not 40 or 120 after conception). Despite these various opinions (correctly called opinions, as Sant states), some scholars of various religions agree with research into embryos, making their stances quite flexible. 

All of this can occur because of the philosophical concept of personhood. Some philosophers base their thinking on blatantly incorrect science and scientific interpretation, including our own late Fr Peter Serracino Inglott. These relate personhood to individuality, with the argument that since up to 14 days post-fertilisation, twins can still develop, therefore the embryo is possibly not a single individual and thus not a person.

The suggested idea is that two individuals could be hidden within the single embryo.

This scientific view shows a serious lack of knowledge of stem cell function. Our earliest stage of development – the human being who was me (or you, or Sant), is capable of self-healing, a feature which is found in our case only in our earliest stages.

On the other hand, other animals, retain this capability as adults. If you split a starfish in half, each part can heal, to produce two starfish, the original individual and a new one. To compare with humans, it is as if, once a human’s arm is cut off, the original human would heal by regrowing its arm, and the arm, would regrow the rest of the body, making a new second human being.

It is never the case that two individuals were there hidden inside those of us who become twins. All embryos are one life, but if for some reason they are “broken” in two, they can heal to form two different embryos, even if genetically identical.

This is the biological basis for disproving the false philosophical premise propagated by many including our own PSI. Despite his skill in philosophy, ideas based on false science are just that – false.

However, I do not feel we need to descend into these details of philosophical thought, or necessarily explain such complex science.

When our loved ones die, they (despite the fact that they have no potential to be human beings at all) are treated by all cultures, including our own, with respect. Apart from legal medical services, no one freezes corpses. It is more the kind of story from a CSI episode.

If we afford the dead bodies of our loved ones respect, when they have no life within, nor will they ever, why does our beautiful country wish to afford much less respect to the embryos which will become our future children?

After all, as Nobel Prize winner Robert Edwards, the Cambridge University physiologist who co-developed the (IVF) method, said (regarding Louise Brown, the first baby to be born using IVF): “Last time I saw the baby it was just eight cells. It was beautiful then and still beautiful now.”

Pierre Schembri-Wismayer is an associate professor, Department of Anatomy, University Faculty of Medicine and Surgery.

Ref: https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20180507/opinion/Human-in-a-test-tube-Pierre-Schembri-Wismayer.678428