Archbishop insists on commitment to life

Archbishop Joseph Mercieca yesterday described in vitro fertilisation as an "illicit" method of procreation.

In his message for Independence Day, delivered during Mass at St John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta, Mgr Mercieca said it was the duty of the Church to teach that IVF was, in itself, an illicit method of procreation. For through this method there were human lives that died soon after conception, he said. Moreover, responsible procreation, which should be done within marriage and its indissoluble unity, was substituted by technicalities that took the place of the conjugal relationship.

In this situation, the Catholic Church taught and insisted that the argument that human life started from the moment the fertilisation process of the ova was concluded was not and could not be morally acceptable. For from a moral aspect, the fertilised egg should be respected and treated as a human being from the moment of fertilisation.

This Church teaching was sustained by the ethically important principle that in case of doubts on the existence of the human character of the embryo and in view of a serious possibility that the embryo was human, one was morally obliged not to make any intervention which could damage or destroy the person.

This moral principle bound everyone, including legislators and medical experts on whom the respect to human life, its rights and dignity depended.

If one wanted the fundamental guiding principle to be complete, respect towards the dignity and integrity of human life, this had to be accepted and observed wholeheartedly.

Mgr Mercieca said it was not just the prerogative of Christians to safeguard and promote human life. This was also a completely human issue since the human conscience eagerly sought the truth and was worried about what humanity went through. The Archbishop said there was division about the moment one acknowledged as being the start of life.

There were those who insisted, as did the Catholic Church, that life started exactly at conception, when the sperm penetrated the egg. This was the beginning of fertilisation and, from this moment, the embryo should be treated and respected as a human person, which developed on its own.

If one kept this in focus, one would understand that no one had the right to interfere with this natural and irreversible process at anytime.

But there were others who insisted that fertilisation was a process that took time and conception started at the end of the fertilisation process.

These believed that while the process began with the penetration of the egg it was concluded with the fusion of the nuclei of the two gametes.

This gradualist theory led one to say that respect due to the human being varied according to what stage of life its moral status would have been placed.

These, Mgr Mercieca said, were continuous and serious discussions. However, it was not the Church's task to enter into scientific discussions on the several phases of the development of an embryo.

Turning to abortion, he praised and thanked the people's representatives who, he said, clearly defended the value of life from conception to natural death.

Mgr Mercieca said that, in a world where respect towards life was always being manipulated, if not denied, facilitating abortion as a consequence, it was of satisfaction to the people and the country that the people's representatives courageously spoke in favour of life and against its destruction.

He expressed satisfaction at the proposal that the Maltese determination in favour of life and against abortion would be enshrined in the Constitution. This was a commitment which found its roots in the Christian knowledge that God was the sole owner of life.

Mgr Mercieca said he hoped and wished that this commitment to life was retained in the discussions about the start of life. On this, he said, depended the sense of direction the country would take on assisted procreation.