Family Ministry believes in helping infertile couples

The Family and Social Solidarity Ministry does not believe that in vitro fertilisation (IVF) should be banned - although it should be regulated, Minister Dolores Cristina said yesterday.

Contacted by The Sunday Times, Mrs Cristina said she did not share the view of Children's Commissioner Sonia Camilleri that IVF should be banned in Malta.

"The ministry's stand is that couples with infertility problems should be helped, as far as possible, to have the children they long for," she said.

"I regularly meet couples with infertility problems. My heart goes out to them. With four children of my own I would not presume to say that I can even imagine what it's like for them to long for a child and not be able to have one," she said.

Mrs Cristina described the pain of couples with infertility problems as "palpable", and said that in many cases this took over the couple's life, sometimes leading to a complete breakdown in a relationship.

"The maternal instinct, in particular, is very strong and the sense of failure intense. It is a highly emotionally charged situation, which should be handled with great sensitivity. Couples with infertility problems need expert counselling and guidance from experts in the various fields to help them through a time of great stress and tension," she said.

Mrs Camilleri has come in the line of fire after she told Parliament's Social Affairs Committee that IVF should not be allowed in Malta since research could not yet guarantee a healthy life for the children born through this process. She said nobody had a right to have a baby at all costs.

A distraught woman who has been trying to conceive for the past five years said IVF was the very last hope couples with infertility problems had of having their own child. "Don't take away our only hope," she pleaded.

In a broken voice, the 31-year-old woman said IVF was used as the "very last resort", and doctors tried other methods before advising a couple to go for it.

"It is extremely painful emotionally, not to mention the financial burden," she said, adding that her goal in life was to work to be able to afford going for IVF treatment.

"How can someone be so insensitive to our situation and what we go through," she said. The woman said she was "worried and disgusted" that Mrs Camilleri seemed to compare infertility with superficial wishes. During the committee meeting the commissioner said she wished she was tall and slim, but had accepted that she was not.

The woman also expressed her concern that there was no embryo freezing in Malta, and said that was the reason why she and her husband had opted for treatment abroad.

"What would I do if I had five embryos? If they implanted them all in me, I would almost surely miscarry. I do not want to run that risk. If there was freezing, I would be able to implant some and then go back for the others," she said.

She also expressed the view that assisted fertilisation should be regulated in Malta, but said banning it from the country was ridiculous.

"If it was banned in Malta, I would still go abroad to have it done. But why deprive me from the right of doing it in my own country?"

Asked for her reaction to Mrs Camilleri's comments, Mrs Cristina said the commissioner was voicing a personal opinion.

"She and I have never discussed the issue of IVF. Had we done so we would have found a considerable number of divergences. I do not agree with her stand on the banning of IVF," she said.

However, the minister continued, IVF "should certainly be regulated".

"We cannot allow for abuse, abusive experimentation or exploitation. This is not only a medical issue but definitely an ethical one. We are not looking at a ban, but at regulation, which is very important," she added.

The minister said it was due to the ethical concerns of the issue that the Social Affairs Committee had embarked on a wide-ranging consultation exercise on matters of a highly sensitive nature.

"For the past months its members have listened to contributions from a wide spectrum of representation. They will sift through all they have heard and report back."

The minister added that debate on many of the issues discussed was still at starting point in this country and her ministry's view was in line with deputy Prime Minister Tonio Borg's statement earlier this month, when he described the realm of assisted procreation as "a marvellous world". He also said we must strive to help those who cannot have children by natural methods to use scientific progress, within the parameters of ethical behaviour.

The first IVF baby, Louise Brown, was born in 1977. Some 1.5 million babies have been born through IVF all over the world, 300 of whom in Malta.

In Malta it is estimated that one in every seven couples experiences fertility problems, according to Obstetrics and Gynecology Department head Mark Brincat.