Public hospital has duty to provide IVF - Serracino Inglott

The fact that the last part of the process of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) does not take place in local public hospitals has been described by former university rector. Peter Serracino Inglott as "not only an anomaly, but an injustice".

At present St Luke's Hospital carries out the procedure which artificially fertilizes an egg, but stops short of implanting this in the womb. This means that the parents have to pay to get the procedure done in a private hospital. "I think the government hospital has the duty to provide it," Prof Serracino Inglott said referring to the implanting of the fertilized egg.

In a presentation to the parliamentary Social Affairs Committee, Prof. Serracino Inglott said the government had the obligation not to prohibit such a service in its hospitals once this was permitted in private ones. He observed that St Luke's Hospital was doing part of the procedure, and therefore footing the major part of the cost.

"It is not fair that the government prohibits the full procedure in public hospitals because it deems it immoral while allowing it in private hospitals," he said.

He said it was obvious that the reason why public hospitals were not going through with the whole procedure revolved around morality, since the government had still invested money in IVF equipment.

Prof. Serracino Inglott also said that it was difficult to justify prohibitive legislation with regard to research on embryos. He said he could not see on which principles the freezing of embryos should be prohibited by law.

The obligation to preserve life was not absolute, he said, bringing the example that a person could refuse possible life-saving treatment.

He said he understood those who were against the freezing of embryos because these could deteriorate, but he added that while prudence was a virtue, this should not be practised to the detriment of values like justice and freedom.

However, he stressed that he was not in favour of an embryo being deliberately destroyed.

The committee is in the process of analysing whether the local biotechnology sector needs to be regulated.

Prof. Serracino Inglott stressed that if every sin was considered to be a crime, the result would be tyranny. He also said that there should be the least possible legislation. Although he said that there should be a law to protect embryos, over-legislation should not take place.

Another argument raised by Prof. Serracino Inglott was whether assisted fertilization should be permitted solely in the case of married couples. He said one could argue that if a couple was refusing to get married, they were not giving the guarantee that they would take care of the baby. However, he added, the situation was different in Malta where divorce was not legal. But this, he said, was an argument to introduce divorce and not to introduce IVF for non-married couples.

"It is less of a threat to introduce divorce than to give IVF treatment to non-married couples," he said.

He stressed that marriage was very important for the function of society, and therefore the introduction of divorce would be attacking the local public policy less than offering IVF to non-married couples.

He also expressed his disagreement with donorship, stating that a child had the right to know who his natural parents were. "I am very reluctant to have practices where the embryo is not planted in the donor couple," he said. Both sperm and eggs can be donated, the latter through a relatively long and complicated procedure. But Prof. Serracino Inglott argued against this, saying that for a child not to know his natural parents would mean uncertainty, but added he did not exclude that solutions could be found.