Roamer's Column

On the one hand there is a massive majority of people in Malta that agrees with the proposal of the deputy prime minister and justice minister, Dr Tonio Borg, that the existing abortion law should be entrenched in the Constitution. On the other we have a situation where, among other activities, an attempt is being made to persuade public opinion that there is nothing wrong with procedures that can amount, do amount, and have amounted, to the wholesale destruction of hundreds of thousands of embryos in the name of in vitro fertilisation (IVF).

If we are to have a sane debate on the issue - and judging from the hysteria and personal, sickening invective that dribbled from the pens of a number of journalists last week we are not going to have a sane debate - we must surely stick to the rights and wrongs that surround the business (I use the word carefully) of IVF.

Let me start at the beginning. It is a mystery to me why assisted reproductive technology has been employed in Malta for so many years without its crossing Parliament's mind that in a matter that involves life and death it had a duty to draw up legislation to regulate the procedures that are used. These procedures involve, among other things, nothing less than the creation of an embryo by the fertilisation of a woman's egg by a man's sperm in a laboratory and its subsequent implantation in the womb. 'Other things' are the thousands of embryos that are not implanted because they are surplus to requirements and for the most part destined for the sink.

When Louise Brown was born 25 years ago, she started off life as a fertilised egg on a dish, a test tube baby and, it bears repeating, it proved "one thing categorically; here from conception is a separate being". If I may quote once more some remarks made by Mary Kenny in 1984:

"This embryo, which can be put back into the mother's womb, or put into another woman's womb, or kept in a deep freeze, or will quite soon perhaps be developed in a laboratory - this embryo can hardly be called, any more, merely a part of a woman's body like an appendix, or a piece of liver tissue (as The Sunday Times called the foetus when it was campaigning for the abortion law back in 1967). Here is categorical proof that the new life is a separate one. If the bottle which held the embryo argued that the embryo was part of its property, no one would believe the bottle, says Jerome Lejeune."

The embryo, therefore, has rights of which the most vital are its right to life, its right not to be subject to experimentation, its right not to be disposed of as an irrelevant tissue inside a test tube, its right not to be incinerated or disposed of in any way ("Roamer's Column", March 19). It is more than appropriate that in Malta these voiceless embryos have a voice to defend them "before as well as after birth" against those who would be their predators.

Without any form of legislation or regulation to guide them, have our specialists respected these rights and, even if they say they have, how can we be certain that this has been the case? We cannot. What we do know is that 300 babies have been born via in vitro fertilisation. There are those who wish to extend this to unmarried couples living in what is described as a 'stable' relationship. At, say, £1,000 to £2,000 for each treatment and implantation (in the absence of transparency one is entitled to make a guesstimate) this makes a handsome income by any standard. We have no statistics as to how each has fared.

We do know, because two parents of IVF-born children have given evidence, anonymously, to this effect before the parliamentary commission charged with hearing presentations from a wide swathe of individuals, philosophers, theologians, biotechnologists, specialists and others, that the charges are steep. One of them found it less expensive to fly to England to a clinic entirely devoted to the procedure than to receive the treatment in Malta; another claimed that he was charged LmX for medication that was a third of the price to be had outside the clinic. Behind the zeal to help infertile couple one detects a partiality for lucre, a fundamentalism common to commerce. But in this matter, where life and death are concerned, money is secondary.

Dr Pierre Mallia, with whom I crossed swords a few weeks back, failed to answer a number of questions that were put to him at the time. They were, I thought, extremely relevant. What precautions are taken to safeguard the existence of extra embryos? What arrangements, if any, have been made... between Maltese doctors and those in other countries to offer services that are illegal in those countries? What, quite, is the degree of embryocide that goes on, if any, as a consequence of IVF procedures?

It is clear, I had written at the time I asked those questions of Dr Mallia, that "we are not at the end of the affair, nearer the beginning; which makes the significance of legislation that is being drafted on the subject even more marked". This legislation will typify the kind of nation we wish to be. Or will it? I ask this especially of those who have indicated they wish to see our anti-abortion law entrenched in the Constitution. Are we really wanting to defend life from its very beginnings?

Of course there is an issue here. It is pathetic that instead of facing it with the seriousness and intelligence it deserves there are those who bring the level of discussion down to sub-zero with snide and personal remarks that reflect worse on their authors than their targets. The latter have a contribution to make, which they made out of a sincere conviction and in the name of autonomous bodies they head. So do the former, but these seem to be incapable of expressing theirs. Instead of dealing with the matter head on, they prefer instead to indulge in petty, personal spite.

That was some week

Sunday the French voted to opt out of the EU Constitutional Treaty. President Chirac gave a Gallic shrug and sacked his prime minister. The French have given us two words for this approach to a personal disaster: nonchalance and panache. You go on television, declare the sovereignty of the will of the people, regret that life will be more difficult for France as a result of that expression - and decide that the buck stops a rung lower than the one on which you are perched. Voilà!

Not only that, of course; you bring in a man, in this case the suave and sophisticated Dominique de Villepin, who does not have a single vote to his credit but who made a name for himself as Mr Chirac's foreign minister in the aftermath of 9/11 by refusing to back the US-led war in Iraq. Watch your back, Monsieur Villepin. More precisely, keep your eyes on Monsieur Sarkozy who has decided not "to stand by and watch the ship sink". Ouch!

It goes without saying that the world did not stop turning Sunday night or for that matter Monday morning and ever since. Nor did Europe slither to a halt, but you could not easily find anybody to declare that the French verdict had not dented the ramparts of Fortress Brussels. Dented may have been the word on Monday; by last Wednesday when the Dutch rejected the treaty even more strongly the breach was visible from Warsaw.

A summit of European leaders is being held in Brussels in less than a fortnight's time. It had been hoped that on that day they would drink a glass of champagne to reflect a celebratory spirit of success, the prime minister of Luxembourg would host some sort of a binge and the British, who will hold the Presidency for the next six months, would deal with a beaming Jacques Chirac and a cheerful Jan Peter Balkenende. No particular squalls ahead, France and Holland behind the treaty but an underlying suspicion on the part of the French that the British would do their level best to make enlargement work to Mr Blair's advantage.

Alas, things are going to be much worse for the British prime minister. He can expect as much mercy in the form of co-operation from Mr Chirac as a succulent bambi from a starve-raved cheetah. The French President is in a foul mood and, his close associates say, the m.... word is often to be heard on presidential lips. He must be hurting, but hurting that he called a referendum when he did not need to do, a gesture he now bitterly regrets. And he is conscious that during the next six months his popularity at home runs a hundredth behind his unpopularity; unless.

The only way forward with his disgruntled electorate has to be open war against perfidious, Anglo-Saxon Britain. Was it not Britain that demanded so many free market blemishes and strained the French social model so? Aux armes! And about that rebate, mon cher Tonee, l'oubliez!

For his part Mr Blair is setting much store by Live 8 and eliminating poverty in Africa (how this can be done without replacing most of the governments on that continent remains to be seen; Live Aid in its day was a noble effort but did not change the picture much, if at all). He has to decide whether to kill the treaty deader than it is by calling the referendum he promised in the summer of 2006 or reneging on his word. His enemies, and some of his friends, think he will find little difficulty in following the second course.

And anyway his problem is not that any more so much as making some form of breakthrough during a period when Britain will be where he keeps saying it ought to be - in the heart of Europe. Pointless being there, however, if he cannot fill the veins of the Union with the rejuvenating blood of economic reform and blast CAP from out of those as yet coagulated veins. Over Mr Chirac's dead body, naturally.

On the verge of Better Things

Twelve years ago, in a fit of verbal rage he could so gracefully summon, Bernard Levin wrote: "I now promise that I will publicly eat an entire dolphin without salt, when the last Green is stuffed with broccoli, spinach, lettuce and dandelion leaves, and boiled in a very large bio-degradable iron cauldron, not that anyone would notice a difference in the nonsense he would be spouting, boiled or raw". (Levin once boasted that he was the only writer who used the semi-colon properly. Maybe; the same cannot be said for his use of the comma.)

No Green Man or Woman today would be amused by the great journalist's humorous, if evil intentions and I can see Harry Vassallo, Alan Deidun, Anne Zammit and friends of the earth, sea and sky, to name but a few, positively bristling.

Let me hasten to add that I would not remotely wish any of them to be the last Green. For one thing I would find the thought of settling down to a salad to which their body parts contributed in any way, a trifle offputting aesthetically and hardly enticing in a culinary sense.

It is true that Greens are sometimes guilty of nonsenses, of taking themselves too seriously, of humourlessness, sometimes, in the worst cases, of a driven energy that verges on the Savonarolesque. It is equally true, however, that they serve a good purpose in life. They provide a scourge for errant governments that ignore the environment and keep public opinion aware of Sloughs of Despond created by poor management, or mismanagement. We owe them our gratitude even if we cannot sometimes help wishing they could be a mite more conscious of Good Things when these happen, indeed a load less garrulous when Good Things are done.

For all that remains to be done before we can settle back and say the battle for a better environment has been won (in fact victory can never be total), we seem to be on the verge of Better Things at the macro-level. An influx of funds from the European Union (Lm5 million plus) and the Italian protocol (nearly Lm3 million) has made this possible. The Government is forking out Lm4 million from our pockets for a grand total of Lm12 million allocated to the ministry for rural affairs and the environment. The minister should be able to show much for this generous financial outpouring. If he fails to do so Dr Gonzi should thank him and guide him in the direction of the knacker's yard.

The separation and collection of waste and waste management, setting up bring-in sites all over the island, recycling the stuff, rehabilitating the Monsters of Maghtab and Qortin and the establishment of heavy duty refuse sites - as opposed to the rejects placed in the latter created at the whim of householders who decide their refrigerators and mattresses blend beautifully with the contours of a valley - should now be vigorously pursued as implementations of government policy.

By the end of 2006 we have to see with our own eyes the difference that implementation will make. More money is being allocated to deal with a sewage system that will prevent, once and for all time, the seepage of sewage into our sea. The principle here is that as little as possible of our waste goes to waste. The new name of the game is recycling

There is another game we need to play, greening and re-greening. For this aspect much depends on MEPA. This body must send out the clearest signal that what remains of the Green Area is not passed on to developers. And if there is a minister responsible for trees and things he should be seriously considering the creation of woods and copses with deciduous trees and plant so that no more concrete creeps greyly into a countryside that is for our enjoyment, a countryside where birds sing and, a corollary to that, no hunter shoots.