Helena Grech Sunday, 22 April 2018, 16:47

A massive crowd gathered on Sunday afternoon to protest against the government’s proposals to introduce embryo freezing tied with anonymous adoption.

People held placards saying ‘I am not an object’ and ‘don’t freeze me’.

The “manifestation” has been organize by pro-life group ‘The Life Network’, who were also against the Morning After Pill which was legalized last year.

 

Mixja favur il-Ħajja from The Malta Independent on Vimeo.

Many older people were in attendance, together with many religious people, priests and nuns. 

Parliament is debating government proposals to introduce embryo freezing tied to anonymous adoption, open up IVF to gay couples and individual people, and therefore would launch sperm and ovum banks. A decriminalization of non-commercial surrogacy is also being proposed.

It is understood that protestors mainly take issue with the “objectification” of human life through embryo freezing and the ethical implication tied to anonymous adoption of embryos.

Those in attendance held white flowers to represent the “babies” which do not have a voice. One woman said the flowers represent the embryos who would be frozen.

The flowers are to be placed in front of parliament as a message of protest.

In comments to this newsroom, one protestor remarked that embryos are not objects, and human life is not being respected through the freezing of embryos.

Other placards read “shouldn’t I know who my mother is?”

The crowds sang ‘hallelujah’ along with a band present. There was a light atmosphere with everybody singing and clapping hands.

Protestors left Castille square to walk Merchant street. They turned onto Republic Street and placed flowers in front of Parliament building, which was cordoned off by police barriers. 

One nun could be seen holding baby shoes to “give a voice to the unborn”.

Miriam Sciberras, a prominent pro-life advocate asked protestors to place single baby shoes in front of Parliament to signify all the embryos that will be frozen. 

Nationalist Party Leader Adrian Delia was in attendance, in addition to former leader Simon Busuttil, MPs David Agius, Clyde Puli, Robert Cremona, Kristy Debono and her husband Jean-Paul Debono. 

Leader of the Patrijotti Maltin, Henry Battistino was also in attendance. 

Miriam Sciberras encouraged protestors to take a ‘selfie’, upload it to Facebook accompanied by the hashtag ‘MovementForLife’. 

Thousands gathered before Parliament to show their opposition to the proposed embryo freezing legal amendments. 

The first speaker, Dr Joseph Mizzi said he is in favor of life and he is not alone. He stressed couples facing fertility issues deserve support and IVF treatment. He said he is against embryo freezing, because it goes against the rights of parents and babies themselves.

He said that embryos will be viewed as products, with some chosen to be born and some arbitrarily chosen to be frozen. 

He said many of the frozen embryos end up dying, and for those which are adopted , this is discrimination by the parents. 

A married man with two children spoke at the protest, who had been born in an institute and adopted by a Maltese women. He spoke of how a chapter in his life remained open until he found his biological parents, despite having a lot of love at home. Protestors are against anonymous adoption of embryos because they feel the embryo is being discriminated against and that it has a right to know who it’s biological parents are.

A British doctor named Joanna Ross, who Miriam Sciberras said is a sibling of about 300 people as part of anonymous embryo protection, addressed the crowd. She spoke of her sadness about her children not knowing who their maternal grandparents are due to anonymous embryo adoption. 

She called anonymous donor conception a “social experiment”, saying it is not normal.

“Anonymous donation is so wrong,” she said.

She spoke of the problems of not knowing our genetic family when health issues arise and medical donations are needed. 

Health Minister Chris Fearne had said if the adopted embryo is born, when it reaches the age of 16 it would have access to the medical records of their genetic parents would be made available. 

Miriam Sciberras took the stand to say the issue goes beyond partisan politics, adding that the majority of people in Malta are in favour of protecting human life.

She said that embryo freezing is only acceptable in exceptional situations, as is currently the law.

Ref: http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2018-04-22/local-news/Give-a-voice-to-the-unborn-massive-protest-against-government-proposals-on-embryo-freezing-6736188593

The complexity of the fraught human realities of childless couples has been all but lost in the heat and dust that has been gene­rated by government’s IVF Bill. It is tempting to just shrug shoulders and say it is not my problem, that this is simply a decision for the would-be parents to make.

But I cannot. There is a third person involved. Embryos are voiceless, and this government’s IVF Bill is trying to make them invisible. Children, we used to be told, should be seen but not heard. By effectively removing the primary focus on the protection of the embryo, the government is relegating embryos to the status of non-persons.

Because this, at its core, is the most fundamental of four controversies surrounding the IVF proposals. The government has tried to pussyfoot around the issue of abortion for years. But in proposing embryo freezing, it has put the spotlight squarely on the nature of the embryo. One-third of frozen embryos die. On such matters of life and death there can be no equivocation. Does the government consider that life begins at conception, or not?

The second controversy revolves around the nature of parenting. The Bill separates the womb from the mother, not just in the exceptional cases of particular medical conditions, and not limited to a particular relationship between the mother and the owner of the womb. Surrogacy will be available to all, with hardly any safeguards that can be scrutinised by Parliament, as if this is a minor technical matter for the minister’s advisor to concoct. 

Nor will this Bill require prospective parents to be in a stable relationship (let alone marriage). A single person is entitled to IVF. Incredibly, the State will have stricter safeguards on parents for fostering than for IVF. And prospective parents freezing their embryos will be required to sign them off for adoption, a world first. Truly, fools are rushing in where wiser heads in more progressive countries are fearing to tread. 

The third controversy is about the nature of the State. The IVF law as it now stands is underpinned by the belief that the State has a paramount responsibility to safeguard the rights of the most vulnerable, and to mediate between competing claims in a sensitive manner that considers the common good and the path of least harm.

With the current Bill the government has effectively abrogated this responsibi­lity. It plans to reduce itself to a supermarket of reproductive services, for its voter-consumers to choose at will. The value of the life of the unborn has been replaced by the supreme value of the market: personal choice. If you want it, you can have it, so everyone (with a vote) is equal. So that’s all right then.

But there is a fourth controversy that the government could have easily avoided.  When Malta was convulsed with the debate on divorce, the discussion was passionate and at times intemperate, but it respected the right of all parties to have their say. The government of the day lost to the popular will, but did not lose its dignity because its position and democratic due process were completely above board. This helped to enshrine divorce not only in the statute books but also in popular culture.

But this government has resorted to subterfuge. The very title of the Embryo Protection Act has become a mockery, a smokescreen for the government’s real intentions.  On Dissett last week Health Minister Chris Fearne stated categorically that the selection of embryos to be implanted and to be frozen would be purely at random.

This is not true. Indeed, if a practitioner were not to select the most viable embryos for implantation, in the case of lack of success he could well be sued by his patients for malpractice. Was Minister Fearne lying?

Then there is the issue of timing. Bills with far less controversial and sensitive subject matter go through long months of public consultation and then parliamentary debate. Yet the government wants to pass the IVF Bill in two weeks, to coincide with the six-month anniversary of Daphne’s murder and the Daphne Project revelations. 

During the 9/11 attack in 2001 in New York, a UK government aide had suggested that this would be “a very good day to get out anything we want to bury”. Our government is engaging in an even more cynical political pincer movement. If the IVF Bill distracts people from the Daphne Project exposés, well and good. If the Daphne Pro­ject distracts people from the IVF Bill and government gets to burnish its faux progressive credentials to local and international lobbies, even better.

The Bill will finally land on the desk of President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, who last week addressed a Commonwealth conference on the rights of children. Will she sign it as it stands? She has a choice. We pray that she, at least, chooses to safeguard the unborn.

Ref: https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20180422/opinion/What-price-this-baby-Sandro-Spiteri.677083

Minister Chris Fearne has stated that the proposed amendments to the existing law that regulates IVF and grants protection to embryos “address one of the most powerful forces in human nature – the will to procreate and have a family” (Times of Malta, April 4). It is quite sad and ironic then, that the proposed legislation turns human procrea­tion into a totally unnatural act.

The Embryo Protection Act sought to regulate the use of technology wisely by restricting it to assisting infertile couples in a stable relationship. In doing so, it also protected the embryo’s dignity from the beginning of life and throughout their deve­lopment into childhood by making sure that they would be born and raised by their natural mother and father.

Not so in this proposed Act. Unashamedly, the proposed Act goes down the rabbit hole where not only does the embryo cease to have the lifelong protection of growing into and being sustained by their natural mother and father but it effectively makes redundant those natural family bonds, replacing them by the cold hand of technological procedure, registers and an (unspecified) “protocol”.

This Act turns the child – our hope, our future, those whom we, as a nation, love and invest in the most – into a commodity. By legalising gamete donation (access to sperm and ova from anonymous persons) and surrogacy (the renting of wombs), it reduces the child to a mere ‘object of desire’. Anyone who decides they want one, can ‘make’ one, by getting a piece from here, another piece from there, and whenever they feel like it, the semi-finished product can be taken out from storage and put into any stranger’s womb.

The child born from such a technocratic procedure would never be able to know who their natural mother is, who their natu­ral father is, whether they have any siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents… maybe not even who carried them in the womb that gave them birth. They will be the ‘child desired’ by a ‘prospective parent or parents’, but nonetheless they will be orphans by design: the product of human ingenuity and adult self-interest. 

Gone is the human ideal that it is the love that binds man and woman who give birth to them as mother and father who take responsibility for their child. Now, our potential to father and mother (that is, our biological seeds of sperm and egg) is completely disconnected from our natural responsibility to father and mother the child whom we love into being.

The proposed law is telling us that it is perfectly fine to spread our seed and not care about the children that might or might not be born. Indeed, in its twisted logic, the proposed law dares to present as “generosity” the act of “donating” my seed while not caring about whether it will grow to become my child.

For the parenthood that the new law exalts is that grounded solely in an adult’s desire and choice. If I want a child, I should have the right to make one by whatever means possible – even if it defies all rules of nature that ultimately seek to protect the child’s best interest, and therefore the wellbeing of future gene­rations. But the proposed law is not interested in the child’s best interest or the wellbeing of future generations.

Also, let us not forget that the proposed Act intends by design to offer no guarantee that the child ‘made’ will be born at all. By opening the possibility of embryo freezing – and it is ‘embryo freezing’ not the euphemism “fertilised-egg freezing” intended to further depersonalise the child that has been conceived – a “prospective parent” or “parents” can make more embryos than they will ever “need” or “want”. In fact, freezing gives the option to change one’s mind about how many embryos one will, down the road, “need” or “want”.

And those frozen embryos that five, 10 or more years down the road end up being “not needed” and “unwanted” will simply be left suspended between life and death. Siblings conceived toget­her will be separated by the choice of adults who may once had wanted to be their “prospective parent” or “parents” but not any more. Some siblings will be chosen, others frozen (until another ‘use’ is found?) others may be donated to whomever might generously decide to give them an opportunity to grow. Those conceived at the same time could end up being born of different ‘parents’ five, 10, 15 or maybe more years apart… or (more likely) not at all.

For how many ‘prospective parents’ will be willing to take someone else’s ‘second best’ embryos? Will the State incentivise a ‘prospective parent or parents’ to give the opportunity to a ‘stored’ embryo to be born, over making a fresh batch from scratch with gametes of their choosing – whether their own, or taken out from a register with plenty of sperm and ova to choose from?

If we think we have entered a surreal world of child ‘making’, then we must also acknowledge that it can become the nightmare of a generation who will struggle with their personal identity because we have chosen to give them no family roots and therefore no personal history.

A child born from a frozen state through being ‘donated’ will trace their genealogy to a number in a lab record: to the medical history of an anonymous sperm donor (who might be dead before the child is even conceived), even a possible egg donor, maybe even the person who was willing to rent their womb.

This is to transform the gift of human life into a cold, calculative mindset that fails to appreciate how it is not the ‘putting together’ of a physical body that makes a child, but the long human journey of family connections and generations who, through many acts of self-sacrifice, loved him or her into being who he or she is today.

This new law proposes that we annihilate those family connections; that we make ‘blood’ obsolete. Instead, it gives us technological solutions and self-interested adult choice as the new ‘creators’ of future generations. Is this the kind of future we want for our children?

Nadine Delicata is a moral theologian and lecturer in the Faculty of Theology of the University of Malta.

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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.

L-emendi jinkludu l-iffriżar tal-embrijuni għall-addozzjoni u li ssir konsultazzjoni pubblika biex il-kiri tal-ġuf f’xi każi ma jibqax kontra l-liġi.

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.

Ref: http://www.newsbook.com.mt/artikli/2018/4/19/iffrizar-embrijuni:-diskriminazzjoni-bejn-it-trabi-kana.74051/

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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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.