Author: lifenetwork

On 4 October 2017, PN MPs David Agius and Stephen Spiteri, two Nationalist Party MPs, tabled a private members Motion, Motion No. 66, in the House of Representatives. They proposed an amendment to the Leave for Medically Assisted Procreation National Standard Order, 2017 (Legal Notice 156 of 2017).

The motion requested that the words ‘prospective parents’ and ‘medically assisted procreation’ in the Legal Notice be defined in terms of the Embryo Protection Act, Chapter 524 of the Laws of Malta. The latter primary law, enacted by Parliament in 2012, defines ‘prospective parents’ as meaning ‘either of two persons of the opposite sex who are united in marriage, or who have attained the age of majority and are in a stable relationship with each other’. In other words, this definition (a) applies only to (i) a heterosexual married couple, whether married by the Catholic Church or by a Marriage Registrar in terms of the Marriage Act, Chapter 255 of the Laws of Malta; or (ii) two heterosexual cohabiting persons; and (b) excludes homosexual couples who are (i) not married together, (ii) in a civil union or (iii) cohabiting together.

On the contrary, the definition of ‘prospective parents’ in Legal Notice 156 of 2017 is more embracing as it means ‘two persons who are united in marriage, civil union, cohabitation, or who have attained the age of majority and are in a stable relationship with each other’. What is purposely excluded under the Embryo Protection Act is intentionally included under Legal Notice 156 of 2017.

Motion No. 66 raises an issue of conflict of laws. On the one hand, the Embryo Protection Act restricts recourse to in vitro fertilisation to heterosexual married or cohabitating couples, whilst the subsidiary law made under the employment law is wider in purport as it allows homosexual employees to utilise paid vacation leave up to 100 hours for the purpose of submitting oneself to in vitro fertilisation procedures abroad.

The issues that arise are (a) whether there is a conflict of laws between the primary law and the subsidiary law; and (b) whether the subsidiary law – which, after all, is made under a different law other than the Embryo Protection Act – can still be made this notwithstanding.

Before answering these questions, it must be admitted that the matter raises more issues than these, though the main issues are the hierarchical nature of the law and public policy. If Parliament has decided to restrict in vitro fertilisation to a heterosexual married or cohabitating couple, can a delegate (in this case a Minister) – though under a different law – go beyond Parliament’s mandate and allow other persons not contemplated by the Embryo Protection Act to avail themselves of such leave facility? Can a distinction be drawn between IVF services in Malta regulated by Maltese Law and IVF services offered overseas regulated by a foreign law? Cannot a person who does not qualify under the Maltese law exercise the right to have IVF treatment abroad?

A subordinate authority to Parliament cannot make subsidiary legislation which runs counter to a primary law, even if that subsidiary law is made under any other law which is not the one to which its subject matter relates. In the case of Louis F. Cassar noe v. Prime Minister the Civil Court, First Hall, had annulled a subsidiary law which ran counter to a primary law. The same reasoning equally applies here even if the subsidiary law is made under another law which is not the Embryo Protection Act. This is because no subsidiary law may run counter to a primary law. Subsidiary laws are intended to supplement, not replace, primary laws.

Moreover, when a Minister is delegated law making powers by Parliament, s/he cannot use those powers to usurp Parliament’s law making function in breach of the doctrine of the separation of powers. A Minister may breach a primary law only and only if, and solely to the extent that, s/he is authorised to do so by an express provision in the primary act. To act otherwise, as is the case of Legal Notice 156 of 2017, is for government to subvert the authority of Parliament, thereby bringing itself in breach not only of the doctrine of the separation of powers but also of the rule of law.

Furthermore, the issue of public policy plays an important role here. If it is Malta’s public policy (as enshrined in the Embryo Protection Act) to offer in vitro fertilisation only to heterosexual couples, whether married or in cohabitation, then if a subsidiary law extents the scope of application of the Embryo Protection Act to non-heterosexual couples, then there is a breach of Malta’s public policy.

Government might argue that the Embryo Protection Act is discriminatory against same-sex couples. However, even if – and only for argument’s sake – this argument is conceded to be correct, this course of action can never justify the Minister in ignoring the will of Parliament, even if the Minister enjoys the backing of Cabinet on this matter. To allow such ministerial reasoning and action – to change a law which is allegedly discriminatory – without going through the proper channels (Parliament or the courts to amend the law or have it declared unconstitutional or in breach of human rights) is arbitrary and in breach of the doctrines of separation of powers and the rule of law apart from injecting an element of uncertainty in the law. Otherwise all primary laws can be brought to naught if a minister, through a legal notice, elects to amend or contravene a primary law. The whole edifice upon which the whole law stands will crumble into pieces and despotic rule will replace indirect democracy.

Unless and until such allegation of discrimination is judicially ascertained or legislatively changed, it is the definition in the Embryo Protection Act which ought to prevail for the purposes of Legal Notice 156 of 2017. This implies that this Legal Notice should be interpreted narrowly to apply only to heterosexual married and cohabitating couples to reconcile it with the will of Parliament. To do otherwise is to opt for the law of the jungle, not for the rule of law. But then who cares about the rule of law in Malta? Surely not government or the Opposition MPs who support Legal Notice 156 of 2017!

Professor Kevin Aquilina is the Dean of the Faculty of Laws at the University of Malta.

The latest hot discussion in widening the scope of the Embryo Protection Act is for allowing anonymous gamete donation.

This means using a third party, that is, a man or woman, other than the couple, to provide sperm or egg. In this case, the donor is given an altruistic description  comparing this to an act of organ or blood donation when nothing could be further from the truth. It ignores what is required to create these children: exploitation of women and children, health endangerment and the commodification of human life.

Gamete donation carries a heavy responsibility. A human life is created from gametes. This new human life is the child, the baby. The biological link between parent and child is undeniably intimate and, when severed, there are lasting repercussions for all parties.

Why is no one with authority considering the needs and rights of children as the adult-centred discussion rages on?

A local IVF expert has become the front set on removing any boundaries in the process of producing a child.

What should be a discussion that includes all the stakeholders in the issue has become a one-sided front. It risks pitting children against their parents. This is very dangerous, as, in this way, the child can become a means to an end, justifying any method used in his or her conception.

Anonymous sperm or egg donation from abroad is being touted as the solution for single women and infertile couples. We are told “a large sperm pool should set our minds at rest” from problems of consanguinity, as if our children cannot travel, move away or study abroad and meet anonymous half-siblings. In the quest for a child, no one seems to care about the baby.

‘Single mothers by choice’ is being promoted as an option that should be available. Will it also be eligible for social services by choice? Should it not be only offered as a support for those in crisis pregnancy only? Who will make the distinction?

Where are the women’s lobby groups when it comes to surrogacy? Pro-lifers and women’s groups typically come together against surrogacy as the ultimate exploitation of women worldwide. Why are they silent in this blessed country?

Where are the voices of the Embryo Protection Authority in this matter? Are they not worried that our children are to be treated in this way? Where is the Commissioner for Children?

The child deserves protection before as well as after birth. In the UK, anonymous gamete donation was banned after the authorities listened to the plea of donor children. There was a highly-publicised court case that led to this, and donor conceived Joanna Rose was in Malta to testify.

The Commissioner for Children has a duty to meet her and others who have children’s rights at heart. Her brief should compel her to speak out on behalf of children born from these technologies.

In the course of my work, I have personally spoken to Rose many times, and, in compiling research for her PhD, she illustrates how the IVF industry blatantly refuses to acknowledge the grief inflicted on children like her.

I have also spoken to British-born Tom Ellis, a young man with a master’s degree from Cambridge, who was also conceived through anonymous gamete donation.

He describes his painful unresolved situation explicitly: “I am reasonably successful but it doesn’t make me feel any better about not knowing who I am. There is a saying that there are two lasting bequests we can give our children: one is roots and the other is wings. I think donor-conception denies a child both of these. I feel like a tree that has half of its roots missing. And without them, I can hardly stand up.”

Maltese society has always protected and valued children from conception, both locally and internationally. Alarm bells should start ringing in this discussion, where we now see a sudden change of ethos towards the protection of life from conception, when ethical issues become dismissed and where doubts are intentionally sown on the beginning of life.

Where are we going with this debate?

Why do adults have a ‘right’ to a child, while a child has no right to a father or mother? Why are we speaking of intentionally robbing children of their genetic parents as progressive treatment?

Are we on the way to making Malta, once a haven for child protection, a popular destination for international, free-for-all, unregulated fertility tourism?

Is this the next political ball game?

My heartfelt plea goes to all our politicians. Please, get your act together and stop this. Consider the facts: embryo protection is the only frontier against abortion.

The stakes for life are high. It took an incredible feat of courage for the entire House of Representatives to come together when the Embryo Protection Act came into law. Let us keep it that way.

Miriam Sciberras is chairwoman of Life Network Foundation Malta.

Welcome to our first Newsletter!

Life Network Foundation Malta is happy to welcome you to the first edition of Life News. This quarterly newsletter will update you on all current projects and ongoing life related issues. We urge you to download it from here 

A week ago, I attended an informative seminar on the aspects of surrogacy and gamete donation from a children’s rights perspective. I must confess leaving the conference sad and with my head reeling.

Life Research Unit Malta, in collaboration with Sallux, brought three expert speakers on the subject. They were Frenchman Christophe Foltzenlogel, a jurist at the Strasbourg-based European Centre for Law and Justice, Esme Wiegman-van Meppelen Scheppink, a Dutch former member of Parliament, and Briton Joanna Rose, herself a victim of surrogacy. The seminar was chaired by a young Maltese lawyer, Sara Portelli.

I listened to all of them, but Joanna’s experience struck me the most. She spoke about how surrogacy and gamete donation work. She accentuated the fact that reproductive technologies are most often adult-centric and do not consider the rights of the children born from them.

While the grief of adults who want children is widely acknowledged, and rightly so, when it comes to children, language changes and their grief is not acknowledged or even explored. They are “expected to be grateful that they exist”. But, in truth, the children born from these technologies do not concur.

Joanna said that, for her and many of her friends, love is not enough. They have a right to their own identity and to acknowledge kinship bonds.

When the sense of family history is totally lost or blurred, the child is inconsolable. The child suffers silently, as any attempt to speak out seems ungrateful from the family’s point of view.

She describes what she and others feel as “disenfranchised grief”, more so when they know that their conception was planned that way. Children’s rights, including the right to know their biological mother and father and, as far as possible, to be raised by them, suddenly fly out of the window.

I myself have some experience of what it is like to grow up not knowing one’s father, and that was bad enough. My mother was very tight-lipped about him, so I never knew what he had died of till a friend’s mother told me. It was tuberculosis.

I was a very curious child and would try to glean information about him from anyone around me, like aunts, friends of his and so on.

I just wanted to get a picture of who my father was. It was so important to me.

How much more confusing will it be for the children born of gamete donation and/or surrogacy, with the endless combinations of paternity and maternity, biological, commissioning and others.

Why would we venture to do this to children intentionally?

The fact that surrogacy and gamete donation and, of course, abortion laws exist in other countries does not mean we should rush in and ape them. Can we not think clearly and humanely?

Here is this brave woman telling us how she and others feel. There must be hundreds of grown-ups and children who feel the same way. In Malta, we have a strong embryo protection law that protects children and helps couples.

Citing the new amendments and some sort of unequal equality, we are seeing a frontal attack to dismantle embryo protection, the last frontier stopping abortion.

Without embryo protection, babies become objects, commodities, dispensable like rubber dolls.

I urge all who still have a conscience to fight and speak out, not to allow these laws to be passed in Malta. Let us stand up and be counted.

The Maltese are known for their love of children, so let us show the world we choose to be different and stay free of all these shameful laws that make objects out of our preborn children.

Many are concerned to know the Embryo Protection Act is threatened or will be removed. Let us all speak out against this and hold on to our life-protecting legislation.

I still hold on to the dream that we, as an upright people, can and will steer Malta out of these murky waters into calmer seas and regain our peace of mind.

Mary Hilda Camilleri worked for Lifesave the Unborn Child in the UK.

In his article on the abortion debate recently, Alternattiva Demokratika chairman Carmel Cacopardo made two very important statements. The first was that “AD has radically changed”, the second, that “AD had taken a pro-life stance in the past and he was not proposing to change that”.

On the other hand, Martin Scicluna in his article ‘Pro-choice on abortion’ (October 18) is clamouring again for the introduction of abortion in Malta. The irony is that even though he himself has arrived at the conclusion that “there is no burning need for abortion in Malta on practical or humanitarian grounds”, because even “the figures don’t appear to suggest there is the need”, he keeps harping on its introduction.

According to him: “It is a fact that those relatively few Maltese women who want an abortion – perhaps around 100 each year – (can) obtain one by taking a flight to the UK or Italy and having it performed there.” So why is he shouting so loudly for the introduction of abortion in Malta? One can only speculate.

Apparently, one of the reasons AD has changed and now wants a debate on abortion, according to Cacopardo, is because lately the AD has been informed that some educators had observed that the number of children with Down’s syndrome attending educational facilities had noticeably declined over the past years.

He added that he had been informed that it is not clear whether this decline in numbers is real or perceived. Nor is it clear whether this observation is the direct result of a diminishing birth rate or else whether it has another explanation.

He said he had emphasised then, and reiterates now, that an informed debate on abortion and reproductive health is essential and that it needs to be fuelled by research. In international discourse “reproductive health” is synonymous with abortion.

Cacopardo said that during the last few years, private clinics have been offering pregnant women (presumably in Malta) two specific tests that can indicate whether the foetus has developed Down’s syndrome.

He added: “These tests are not provided by the national health service and so no information is publicly available as to how many such tests were carried out over the years and in how many cases the possibility of developing Down’s syndrome was identified. It is not known what follow-up action was taken by the expectant mothers in each of the cases subject to the above-referred tests.”

This is why, it seems, according to Cacopardo, “the matter needs to be researched and analysed in depth in order that a debate on abortion is carried out”.

The Malta Unborn Child Movement (MUCM) had asked for this kind of research not so long ago. In December 2013, the director general of the National Statistics Office had informed MUCM, upon its request, that the director of the Health Information & Research Department of the Ministry of Health was doing research in this direction.

In fact, in March 2015, the department published a report entitled ‘Congenital Anomalies in Malta’ by Miriam Gatt.

In October, US President Donald Trump affirmed the “inherent dignity” of people with Down’s syndrome and decried the “tragically misguided” sentiment that underlies anti-life attitudes toward them. He condemned discrimination against people with Down’s syndrome and praised “the family members, caregivers, medical professionals, and advocates who have dedicated themselves to ensuring that these extraordinary people enjoy lives filled with love and increasing opportunity”. 

If Cacopardo is suspecting that Maltese parents are opting to abort their unborn babies, probably overseas, because of the detected disability he and AD are not alone. To this extent this has been a very good and insightful reflection, which might have sparked in Cacopardo the need for the abortion debate.

Denmark is on its way to matching Iceland’s 100 per cent abortion rate for unborn babies diagnosed with Down’s syndrome. In 2014, the Danish government reported 98 per cent of unborn babies who tested positive for Down’s syndrome were aborted. Denmark is encouraging prenatal testing and promoting discriminatory attitudes. Denmark is working to become “Down’s syndrome-free”, like Iceland, within the next decade.

In this scenario Cacopardo’s loud call for a mature debate on abortion could serve so that during the debate AD, as a pro-life political party, and many other pro-life national institutions, could suggest how abortion of Down’s syndrome unborn children could, and should, be avoided. This, to protect the dignity and rights of all unborn children, the disabled included, from potential harm of any description, including abortion.

The MUCM, with the very active participation of the Labour Party, the Nationalist Party and Alternattiva Demokratika, so far, has been doing this kind of promotion, especially on Pro-Life Days it organised for the last 10 years.

Thomas Verny, psychiatrist and family therapist, a world authority on womb ecology and author of the book, The Secret Life of the Unborn Child writes: “The evidence of intelligent life in the womb is overwhelming. Parents can contribute actively, before and during birth, to giving their child happiness and security for the rest of his or her life.” Pro-life activists will add: “In any situation, normal and not so normal. Not the other way round.”

It is suggested that Cacopardo, who is now leading the environment party, reflects seriously on the paragraphs in the book Environmental Justice and the Rights of the Unborn and Future Generations by Paula Westa, which I mentioned in my article. This to offer to work more closely with MUCM, the other political parties, and other national institutions on the Womb Ecology project agreed upon with the Speaker of the House of Representatives during the MUCM Pro-Life Day in February, where Simon Galea of AD also made a pro-life speech.

I call on Cacopardo and AD now to do that. Also to work for justice to be done to all unborn children, including those with all kinds of disabilities. As an environment party and with him at the helm, AD may turn out to be a chief promotor of human life from conception, after all.

As a pro-lifer, Cacopardo can also say a thing or two to Scicluna and his pro-choice friends; that abortion is always the deliberate killing of innocent human life at its very beginning, at whatever stage of its physical and mental development in a woman’s womb, and not a wart in a woman’s face, or a cancerous growth in a woman’s body, to be removed for very good cosmetic and health reasons.

Also, that there are other good solutions to unwanted pregnancies. Nobody has the right “to choose” to kill a little, defenceless and vulnerable human being.

It is amazing how a man of Scicluna’s calibre and stature, and in his 80s, full of human wisdom, has not yet discovered what many other pro-choice advocates, locally and abroad, among them many distinguished medical and other scientists, have already discovered about the rights and dignity of very little, defenceless, vulnerable and unborn human beings.

Tony Mifsud is coordinator, Malta Unborn Child Movement.

We are pleased to announce FEMM Team Malta. This new science based women’s health programme is now available locally.

Would you like to learn more about your hormones and your cycle? Are you having fertility problems? Be informed. Contact us on femm.malta@gmail.com

Click here to view video highlights of the ceremony

Check out our pics at this year’s University of Malta’s Freshers’ Week 2017.

Great work Sara and Maria!

In the past week, we have seen a series of debates explode in the news regarding the introduction of a supposedly innocuous legal notice (156 of 2017) regarding leave for medically assisted procreation.

On close examination of this legal notice, one finds a change in the definition of “prospective parents” to now be “the two persons who are united in marriage, civil union, cohabitation or who have attained the age of majority and are in a stable relationship with each other”.

According to the Embryo Protection Act, prospective parents are clearly stated to be one man and one woman.

The battle is set to start to dismantle the Embryo Protection Act quickly and quietly in the name of a new freedom that excludes the rights of the child.

In this heated debate, it is very easy to dismiss what this Act stands for.

It stands for defending life from conception. It makes Malta unique in its defence of life. A stance that irks most of our European neighbours but also a stance that wins us admiration from abortion-torn countries which are doing their very best to overturn the infamous Roe vs Wade that legalised abortion. Are we ready to remove this frontier protecting life?

If so, the people deserve to know the truth. Undermining this Act by stealth is dishonest to say the least. A strong embryo protection law will prevent abortion from ever becoming legal locally.

This law is not about discrimination.

Ministers Chris Fearne and Helena Dalli can have as many press conferences as they wish but they cannot alter the facts of nature, and Fearne, a doctor, is all the more aware of this. It is nature that does not allow homosexual couples to have children, not inequality laws.

The feminist movement in Europe is also against surrogacy in principle, which is seen as the ultimate exploitation of a woman’s body

Sperm donation as defined by children from these procedures is “the abandoning of children by their genetic fathers”.

Paternity cannot be donated, because children need kinship bonds. By the same principle, if sperm donation is introduced for lesbians, their male counterparts will be up in arms quoting discrimination too, and in this way surrogacy will come in.

Regarding surrogacy, it is pertinent to note that the European Parliament rejected a draft report on surrogacy in the EU in February 2017.

The feminist movement in Europe is also against surrogacy in principle, which is seen as the ultimate exploitation of a woman’s body. In Malta women’s lobby groups are very silent on this issue.

In the arguments that are being put forward it is very clear that all parties are ignoring the ‘elephant in the room, that is the child born from these procedures.

Ignoring the rights of the child is easy, but we do so to the detriment of our society. In the Convention for the Rights of the Child, Article 3, we find that the best interests of children must be the primary concern in making decisions that may affect them.

In Article 4, on the Protection of Rights, governments are entrusted with the responsibility to take all available measures to ensure children’s rights are respected, protected and fulfilled.

The Convention for the Rights of the Child also reinforces children’s rights to know and, as far as possible, to be cared for by their biological parents.

Children also have the right to know their identity. Hence the importance of acknowledging kinship bonds.

The Embryo Protection Act is valid and was voted for by a consensus from both sides of Parliament. This is because although it seeks to help couples suffering from problems of infertility, at the same time it safeguards the rights of the child while still in the embryonic stage.

The Act is based on an equality that includes the preborn child.

Our elected politicians are the elected guardians of the people of Malta, including the preborn. It is their duty to protect life from conception. The absolute majority of the people expect and demand this.

Equality is being taken a step too far when it excludes the rights of children and the protection of embryonic human beings.

Miriam Sciberras is chair of Life Network Foundation Malta.

Life Network Foundation Malta strongly objects to the proposed alterations on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on the right to life, imposing on countries legislation that demeans the value and dignity of every human life. To read further please access the following links:

Life Network Malta’s submissions

Life Research Malta’s submissions

Maltese’s government’s submissions