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Iffriżar embrijuni: “Diskriminazzjoni bejn it-trabi” – Ta’ Kana
Charmaine Attard – 19/04/18 04:45 PM
Il-Moviment ta’ Kana saħaq li l-emendi proposti mill-Gvern għall-Att dwar il-Protezzjoni tal-Embrijuni jiddiskrimina trabi minn oħra.
Fi stqarrija, il-Moviment ta’ Kana spjega li l-emendi proposti huma diskriminatorji għax waqt li trabi jingħataw iċ-ċans li jaraw id-dawl tal-ħajja, oħrajn jibqgħu ffriżati.
Il-Moviment stqarr li jemmen li l-koppji għandhom jingħataw l-għajnuna biex iġibu t-tfal fid-dinja, u li l-liġi preżenti tilħaq bilanċ bejn id-drittijiet tal-embrijun u l-interessi u x-xewqat tal-koppji li għandhom diffikultajiet biex jilħqu dan l-għan.
Irrimarka li l-iffriżar tal-embrijuni hu inkompatibbli mar-rispett u d-dinjità li biha għandha tiġi ttrattata l-ħajja umana sa mit-tnissil. Żied jgħid li dawn il-ħlejqiet umani huma destinati biex jibqgħu orfni ffriżati jekk ma jintużawx fiċ-ċiklu riproduttiv u jekk ma jiġux adottati.
Il-Moviment ta’ Kana qal ukoll li l-emendi proposti jkasbru d-dinjità tal-ħajja sa mit-tnissil, idawru wiċċhom għad-differenzi tan-natura u jiċħdu l-kumplimentarjetà tar-raġel u l-mara.
Jisħaq li f’isem l-ugwaljanza, l-emendi jippermettu wkoll id-donazzjoni anonima taċ-ċelloli għat-tnissil u l-kiri tal-ġuf bis-surrogazzjoni. Fisser li b’dan il-mod l-ulied se jiċċaħħdu mill-omm jew il-missier naturali tagħhom u mid-dritt li jitrabbew fl-għożża kumplimentarja ta’ omm u missier.
Temm l-istqarrija billi appella lis-soċjetà ċivili u lill-politiċi kollha ta’ rieda tajba biex jieħdu pożizzjoni kontra l-iffriżar tal-embrijuni u favur id-drittijiet tal-ulied li jitwieldu u jitrabbew mill-ġenituri naturali tagħhom.
Fl-aħħar jiem, l-Arċisqof Charles Scicluna u l-Isqof Mario Grech qalu li qraw b’dispjaċir l-emendi proposti mill-Gvern. Saħqu fost l-oħrajn li l-emendi se joħolqu orfni ġodda u li l-possibilità tal-kiri tal-ġuf se tkun qed tagħmel mit-tarbija oġġett ta’ produzzjoni.
Fil-jiem li għaddew, l-eks Deputat Prim Ministru George Vella qal li l-abbozz tal-liġi dwar l-IVF tgħawweġ l-etika, il-moralità u d-dinjità umana.
A travesty of the supposedly Embryo Protection Act
Altruism, adoption are words that are being used to sugar coat the proposed amendments to the Embryo Protection Act, with the intention to mask a reality that only those wanting to believe deception for political convenience fail to see.
The changes proposed to the Embryo Protection Act in fact have nothing to do with the protection of the embryo. In fact they dehumanise the embryo by calling it a fertilised egg that can be frozen. An egg only lives for a day. A fertilised egg which is no longer called an egg but an embryo can live for years. We are all a fertilised egg.
No wonder former Labour leader Alfred Sant called it a “curious compromise” when Government tried to give the impression that unwanted embryos will be adopted. Adoption sounds nice, but is a lie, because 30% of the frozen embryos will die when they are being defrosted, and that is why Alfred Sant calls it a “step towards abortion”.
There are also natural reasons why frozen embryos will be abandoned and never adopted. First because those frozen are knowingly of poorer quality then the two originally planted in the mother.
Secondly, couples seeking IVF will try to use their own gamete and only source what is needed as everyone would like the child to be at least in part biologically theirs. So this Act will actually see hundreds of embryos, if not thousands, frozen with no purpose. What will happen to them? In many countries machines are switched off over time, and these humans are let to die or, equally bad, given away for experimentation. Where does this Act protect the embryo, the human life? The title of the Act itself has become a lie.
The previous Act did provide for solutions to address the need to avoid making a woman pass through multiple cycles for every IVF treatment. It did so by finding the right balance and implanting three embryos to increase the chances of pregnancy and freezing the unfertilised eggs and sperms for future attempts separately. The Minister claims embryo freezing is necessary to maintain present success rates, since the law will restrict implantation to two embryos. If so why the change? This is neither a compromise, nor a solution. It exposes the embryo to risks or a deep freeze until the machine is switched off. Is this the unfreezing mentality that the Minister would like to see in us? Indeed, this is very insulting to the intelligence of many who understand what the proposal really means.
I will not ask what changed the Prime Minister’s mind on surrogacy when on previous occasions he had affirmed that he had no mandate for it. The craftiness of this Government is amazing.
As Alfred Sant put it; for the Government to appear pro-life, knowing that 95% of the Maltese are unequivocally against abortion, it still introduces embryo freezing but states that “unused” frozen embryos will be give for adoption.
Firstly, a third of frozen embryos will die. Secondly, the minster says that surrogacy will reduce the strain on the woman who may conceive triplets.
From what I understand no mothers have had triplets through IVF treatment in the NHS.
Government depicts surrogacy as an altruistic gesture. People compassionately understand the situation of a mother offering to carry the child for her daughter who biologically cannot bear children. But the Act does not speak about a mother or close family relative but of friends. Now who will define “friend”?
Are we talking about long-time friends, school friends, a Facebook friend from India (the country most notoriously associated with human trafficking for the purpose of surrogacy)?
Rest assured that many will rely on a simple declaration, no questions asked, just as no questions are asked about the Asian women trafficked into Malta to operate massage parlours that only the law enforcement authorities seem to see nothing wrong with.
The proposed amendments, including especially surrogacy, have only one altruistic objective, the commercial interests of a gynaecologist that has been aggressively lobbying for them, and even on occasions speaking on behalf of the government in various seminars and Parliamentary Committees.
That this Government is only about money is no surprise, with all talk of legalising prostitution, cultivating cannabis, selling passports, high rise towers everywhere and making hay while the sun shines. Now it is embryo freezing and surrogacy, which feminist movements worldwide classify as equal to prostitution.
Lastly, we are given the false notion that these amendments are necessary to eliminate discrimination in the provision of medical services. There was and is no discrimination in medical services. Procreation is dictated by the natural order not by the Health Services. To have a child you need a man and a woman, not a single mother, not any other form of relationship. The burden of this natural limitation should not be placed on us all, and gamete donation and surrogacy should not be rendered into a tradable commodity without considering the consequences.
Children born of such donations are not objects or robots.
There are psychological repercussions on the children born without identity from gamete donation and surrogacy. The argument of “like all other adopted children” is unfair. Being an orphan is a most unfortunate and tragic thing, and it is a blessing when a couple offers to adopt that child. But what we are saying now is ‘let’s create orphan children to be adopted.’
In order to eliminate a hypothetical discrimination, we are creating real discrimination by denying children their rightful parenthood, all in the name of equality. We ignore the fact that children are vulnerable, that they will not understand that they came from nowhere, that their biological parents don’t want to know of them, or even, as the law states, that they cannot ever know them.
As parents we know that children are vulnerable, even if the Minister wants to think of them as robots. There are endless stories of traumatised adults unable to connect with their IVF adoptive relations in the knowledge that they are not their true family, which is hidden and denied from them. Where is altruism with these children? Where is the best interest of the children in the new amendments? Not to mention the risks on society with having a small genetic pool of siblings inter-marrying, unknowing of their biological affinity.
Malta, wake up from this mist of money hypnosis. One day, the abundance will drown in greed or simply dry up in the next crisis. What will remain then?
Dear Prime Minister, we are not talking about morality – we are talking about the best interests of the children, frozen and unfrozen.
Tonio Fenech is a former Nationalist minister
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Unfreeze freezing mentality – Tony Mifsud
To help infertile couples in Malta have children, a radical change to the local embryo protection law, including more embryo freezing and gamete donation, is being proposed by the government.
Besides the great ethical and social considerations involved, the possible involuntary killing of many embryos, through thawing, immediately comes to mind. It is the termination of human life at its very beginning. The new law should continue to avoid this probability.
Couples in this position should be informed and helped by the government, through the new law, to increase the chances of getting pregnant by using the natural method of fertility. This consists in eliminating stress as much as possible. Stress has been proven, scientifically, to be a major contributor to infertility.
The government should also inform infertile couples that if they are having trouble conceiving, they should know there are lifestyle factors that affect fertility and that smoking, drinking or medication can be the cause of infertility.
It should also inform infertile couples that in some instances, the cause of infertility is poor sperm quality, which cannot be treated directly.
There are, however, great natural remedies to promote healthier sperm production, function and viability by mitigating the damage from external factors.
In the amended law, infertile couples should be informed also that naturally supplying the body with the extra nutrients it needs during pregnancy can greatly improve fertility, and that beginning this as soon as possible will give the body the best chance of becoming fertile.
The law should also show that a change in lifestyle can help a great deal, as well as adhering to a proper diet. This service is being promoted and developed in Malta based on the UK model by the Malta Unborn Child Movement (MUCM) with the help of nutritionists and dieticians, who can suggest a balanced diet and nutritional supplements as major facilitators.
Psychologists can help as well.
In connection with these changes to the law, Health Minister Chris Fearne has proposed a period of consultation which is very short and should be extended.
He also should find the time to listen to the advice of nutritionists, dietitians and psychologists, among others, and make provisions in the law accordingly.
The success rate of treating infertility using IVF and embryo freezing is around 25 per cent practically everywhere in the world, aside from the much higher physical, emotional and financial cost. IVF users describe “the stress, pain and suffering that all the families going through the IVF route experience”.
The government should consider the natural method to treat infertility more seriously before pushing IVF, embryo freezing and gamete donation much further through very risky legislation.
Not to mention the commodification, and commercialisation, of early human life, which, abroad, is already rife.
Fearne should be congratulated for affirming that “the use of any technology to discover, pre-implantation, whether an embryo has chromosomal defects will not be allowed, nor will the selection of embryos according to gender, and cloning will remain illegal”.
On the other hand, Malta has to unfreeze the mentality, on a national level, that the only solution to infertility is IVF and embryo freezing, with the multiple risks of killing embryos, very early human life, in the process.
Infertile couples should be guided by the government to go for the natural method to treat infertility. The MUCM is doing that. The success rate of the natural method is 80 per cent, which is very good compared to IVF and embryo freezing.
This holds for gamete donation and surrogacy, proposed also in the new law.
Considering that Fearne, who is piloting the changes to the embryo protection law, has decided to keep the same name for that law, he should consider very seriously including also the natural method to fertility in the proposed reconstructed law, so that he will really be safeguarding, as he claims, “the most precious of rights – the right to life”.
Tony Mifsud is coordinator of the Malta Unborn Child Movement.
Off-the-shelf babies
When Health Minister Chris Fearne floated proposed changes to the IVF law, the furore that followed was predictable. IVF procedures can be contentious from an ethical perspective and there are many issues he raised that are controversial.
Mr Fearne, touted as a Labour Party leadership contender, stuck to the usual pseudo-liberal policies his party has successfully adopted since 2013. He even went as far as to suggest the decriminalising of what he called “altruistic surrogacy”, a kinder term for women who sell their wombs, ostensibly awaiting nothing in return.
Of course, away from the issues concerning embryo freezing, sperm donations and embryo adoptions, a key element being introduced through the proposed new law is that the provision of IVF services will not be limited to couples in a stable heterosexual relationship, as is presently the case, but to same-sex couples and single people wishing to become parents.
This is a natural development in government’s confused policies on the family. Once a steadfast pillar of society, the family has today come to mean anything to anyone, subject to individual choice, and not the common good. The concept of marriage has similarly been diluted.
The bishops were among the first to shoot down the proposals, saying the amendments deliberately introduce new types of orphans who would never know their natural mother and father. They said children did not deserve such callous treatment.
A medical practitioner who had been involved in the drafting of the existing IVF legislation described the proposed changes as chilling and irresponsible. Pro-life group Gift of Life said they were ludicrous and abhorrent.
And in the light of this severe criticism, out comes Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to say it is really about equality. We all know he is politically pragmatic but that should not mean amoral. Dr Muscat said he will not be impressed by anyone going on television to speak of morality. He was more concerned with women who cannot have children and who remained at home. We all are.
Yet, resorting to technology to help people with such fertility problems has nothing to do with equality. The Prime Minister appears to be targeting gay couples and the “inequality” he speaks of is all of his own making because it is based on falsity.
It was Dr Muscat’s government that introduced gay marriage in Malta, effectively putting gay couples on par with heterosexual couples. This has already led the way to gay adoptions. Naturally, the amendments to the IVF law also have to cater for gay people, maybe above all others, considering that gay couples cannot have children.
In his political rhetoric, Dr Muscat says all couples and all families are the same, whatever their sexual orientation. This government’s policy over recent years has not aimed to strengthen the family as we have always known it and which could do with so much assistance given today’s challenges and the scientific means available. It has instead introduced new versions of the family, held up with a weak scaffolding of vague liberal rights.
The end result is that we have ‘families’ which nature dictates cannot have children. Promoting IVF, adoption, embryo freezing and calling it a move for equality only exposes the lies the government has been dishing out in the name of liberalism.
Children are not consumables.
This is a Times of Malta print editorial
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A gross travesty of human dignity
The government has just published the amendments to the Embryo Protection Act with the sole aim of not only dismantling this Act and the protection of human life that it provides, but also aims to create a gross travesty of fundamental human rights in general. From what Health Minister Chris Fearne said in Parliament on presentation of the first reading of the Bill, he has done as his colleague Helena Dalli has so ineptly declared, and taken us all to be fools by creating some silly narrative about some persons’ rights. These not only are not even fundamental rights but also are no rights at law or in reason, at all.
The right to life of every human being at the stage of early development is going to be dismantled by allowing embryo freezing with one-time narrative for the gullible. Embryo freezing is a threat to human life on two counts. First, the actual freezing process destroys many of them; secondly, not all are used with the eventual build-up of a parallel frozen humanity which presents an ethical conundrum with what to do with them, which is usually disposing of them by letting them die by thawing. There are over two million frozen embryos in the world today. A parallel humanity in limbo even though the Catholic Church has dispensed with the metaphysical version! The reality is that our pregnancy rate with egg freezing rather than embryo freezing is giving us equitable results as those abroad so that this change is highly questionable. Prima facie, the right to life of a human being is being threatened here for some other questionable rights.
The rights of children are also being put on the line with the allowing of gamete (egg and sperm) donation to both homosexual and heterosexual couples. This is because children are going to become a commodity, a commercial good to be dispensed with at will rather than children brought up in the security of a loving family. Children will be donated at will to other couples who might or might not look after them well. The reality is that not only will children be commodified as a good now, but they will lose a very important right, which is so eloquently stated in the Charter of (Fundamental) Children’s Rights, the right to an identity, foremost among which is that of a genetic identity. Like back in Roman times, children will lose their rights and become like slaves in a commercial market if not on the rubbish or prostitution heaps! Although the minister has stated that no fees will be charged for these “goods”, there will be no way of actually controlling this, and these “children goods” will, as usual, go to the unofficial highest bidder through unofficial alleyways which are impossible to control.
Neo-slavery is not only a present danger to children but also to women who, with the introduction of surrogacy, will also become commodified goods on the commercial market. They will be used and disposed of as needed according to the needs of the market at an undisclosed price, which price can, again, never be controlled and which can be paid back in several ways. The European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe have both passed resolutions on surrogacy, which for this government seem to have remained simply resolutions in ink! Usually it is the poorest women in society that end up prey to the needs of other ‘wealthier’ members, again creating a further dispatching of the dignity of women, who not only have their body used to make others happy, but end up having to counter and forego their own maternal instincts in the process. God only knows what will happen to these children born through surrogacy if they might have disabilities and abnormalities. The world already has a tendency to put down these children with disabilities by exterminating and disowning them when they belong to the very people who produced them, because said children are not ‘perfect’, let alone when these children become products to third parties on the human commodity circus.
It is good that the state helps infertile parents have children. However, there are limits to this help and these limits are reached when the fundamental rights of others are breached by the action of individuals and the state. Since the law has not yet been published, and here I am limiting myself to what the minister said, there are probably other threats to fundamental rights being breached by the new law. I hope that the parties in Opposition will have the courage to reject this bill with the legal opposition they are capable of, putting up an effective resistance rather than appear to be complicit in this travesty for simple populist reasons. NGOs have a role here too. If the Bill presented actually becomes law, then it should be challenged in our Law Courts. Our Constitution still gives citizens fundamental rights which cannot be written away by a government which being at the pinnacle of power, believes it can manipulate things infinitely and trample on people’s rights and in an act of arrogance literally throw out the baby with the bath water!
Dr Asciak is Senior Lecturer II in the Institute of Applied Science at MCAST
IVF law drafter slams new Bill as ‘chilling’
Sunday, April 15, 2018, 07:28 by
A medical professor who had been involved in the drafting of the existing IVF legislation has branded proposed changes to it as “chilling” and “irresponsible”.
University of Malta lecturer Prof. Pierre Schembri Wismayer gave this scathing review when asked for his reaction to the government’s plans from a medical perspective.
In 2012 he had been involved in the consultation held in the run-up to the drafting of the Embryo Protection Act which regulates IVF.
He summed up his assessment of the proposed changes as tantamount to a document prepared over the weekend by somebody high on energy drinks.
“If such proposals were put forward in an exam paper, the candidate would have surely failed,” he said.
Among the proposed changes, embryo freezing and adoption are arguably the most controversial.
Prof. Schembri Wismayer noted that obliging couples who are interested in IVF treatment to give their consent to embryo adoption was probably a first.
“It is as if they are being blackmailed to give away their own embryos for adoption in case these are not required.”
Adoption, he said, might sound like a good compromise to avoid embryo destruction but in reality such a course of action would open a can of worms.
“No couple will be interested in adopting an embryo. People are being deceived,” he said.
“A gay couple would rather use their own egg or sperm to have half of the baby’s genetic composition rather than adopt an embryo belonging to third parties with no sense of belonging whatsoever,” he added.
Moreover, he noted that embryologists would be selecting the “best two” embryos out of the permitted five for IVF treatment to have a higher probability of success.
Pierre Schembri Wismayer
“This means that the rest, which will be frozen, will in actual fact be less healthy embryos. This will further reduce the chance of these embryos being adopted.”
Regardless, of these considerations, Prof. Schembri Wismayer warned that there would still be the risk of frozen embryos being destroyed, as statistically one in every three dies in the thawing process.
The expert also subscribed to concerns that embryo adoption opened up the possibility, albeit a remote one, of persons being in a relationship with their own siblings without their knowledge.
“Much depends on the safeguards in place to ensure that the same person can only donate sperm or eggs once in their life. In this respect, the Bill says very little on the checks and balances which will be in place,” he says.
Another major concern raised was on the level of screening to be carried out on donors to detect certain hereditary diseases such as thalassemia, which is common in Malta.
“At present tests are carried out on both partners if it transpires that one of them suffers from it, and if they both test positive, their children are highly likely to suffer as well. In this case such screening cannot be carried out since the donor’s identity will be anonymous. How will these diseases be screened? Will this result in genetic testing?” he questioned.
The Bill also says that when they turn 16, children born from an adopted embryo may check the medical records of the parents in case of serious diseases.
“How will they be able to do so if the records will be kept anonymous?” he asked again.
On the other hand, he argued that banning anonymous donors might then pose the problem of putting off anyone interest in donating their sperm or eggs.
There are also issues over surrogacy in cases where children are born with certain conditions like Downs’ Syndrome. Prof. Schembri Wismayer warns that there have been cases abroad where the prospective parents have refused them.
“Yet, it is being proposed to introduce surrogacy through a legal notice, not even a proper legislation,” he noted.
“IVF is being handled in the most irresponsible manner. This is not some controversy over fuel pump policy. We are dealing with human life here. The very idea of enacting such a law in just a fortnight is chilling. It beggars belief that such a Bill has been presented in the first place to legislators,” he said.