Report to recommend freezing of embryos
An embryologist in a laboratory adding sperm to egg.
A report on assisted procreation to be tabled in Parliament on Tuesday is expected to recommend permitting the freezing of embryos under strict protocols, The SundayTimes has learnt.
The report by the parliamentary select committee on assisted procreation will also argue in favour of a l aw that allows the adoption of frozen embryos by third parties . However, it will propose putting sperm and egg donation on backburner.
The committee, made up of three doctors – chairman Nationalist MP Jean Pierre Farrugia, Nationalist MP Frans Agius and opposition spokesman Michael Farrugia – was set up last February to draw up a report on three specific issues left pending by the Puli Report in 2005.
Its brief was to concentrate on the eligibility of couples for treatment, the freezing of embryos, as well as sperm and egg donation. All three issues were left open in the wideranging report authored by the then chairman of the social affairs committee Clyde Puli, five years ago.
According to legal advice obtained by the select committee from the Attorney General, current laws do not provide for the adoption of embryos, which means legislation must be amended before this can take place.
Sperm and egg donation will not be recommended in a bid to encourage sterile couples to adopt frozen embryos instead.
However, the committee is not expected to rule out the donation of gametes completely, recommending the situation be reviewed again after some years.
Only this month, a 42-year-old woman in the US gave birth to a healthy baby after being implanted with an embryo that was frozen for nearly 20 years.
The report is also expected to recommend that in-vitro fertilisation be available for women in a stable relationship, irrespective of whether they are married or not.
The report tackles the sensitive issues from a medical and legal perspective, as was the committee’s brief, avoiding the moral and ethical arguments involved. Malta currently has no specific laws governing assisted procreation even though the private sector has been providing the service for years.
Mater Dei Hospital has laboratories that are fully equipped to provide IVF treatment, including equipment to freeze sperm.
However, it is not being used because the costly treatment for infertile couples is not yet available on the National Health Service and will not be offered unless legislation is in place.
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Gerry Cowie
Oct 17th 2010, 11:56
The only right that we all have is the right to life in the first place. A child is not something to get off a shelf as some kind of commodity. Discrimination, if there is any, should be entirely in favour of the unborn child and not in favour of people who would like to pick and choose without going into the whole arena of the union of two persons which the creation of a new life involves. It is easy to say you feel discriminated against when you cannot have what you want.
Yvonne Spiteri Ghio
Oct 17th 2010, 09:58
I dont think this is a case of descrimination. The unborn child has the right to have a father and a mother and live in a family environment. The child will ask questions about her biological parents. In the case of sperm and egg donations, how is the child going to know who her real father and mother were. Again there are problems with sperm and egg donations especially in Malta. We are small country and using this kind of fertilization with donors could raise alarm in the future for these children such as siblings and health problems. In my opinion IVF should be administered to those poor couples who have problems having children, as the child has the right as I already stated to be raised by a father and a mother and in the case of donors, a certificate of origin should be isssued to the adopted couples who are recieving the stem cells for any future use.
Maria Fenech
Oct 17th 2010, 11:43
I think you're jumping the gun a bit.
A child given birth to by the mother because she had trouble getting a child of her own probably wouldn't question i´t. It's a different case. It's reasonable that a kid who was adopted would question it but with IVF I doubt it. The mother would have carried the child with her for 9 months, would have given birth and come to love it just a much. Yes it could wonder who it is but it isn't very relevant. At least to me. I've never known my real father (he abandoned the family) and I couldn't care less as to who he is. I never missed him or wished to meet.
People who donate sperm agree with signature that they will never claim contact with the child and most do it just to give the ones who can't a chance. Anonymous. They don't want to be named or have the child given a paper with their identity. Some who donate often would have so many different kids if you think about it.
Alfred Gatt
Oct 17th 2010, 09:51
Everything starts 'strictly' and then? What is a 'stable' relationship outside marriage? What has been the experience of other countries? What will happen to those embryos that are not taken up? Will they be destroyed? Isn't an embryo a living person? All these are delicate questions that demand a lot and lot of reflection.
renald williams
Oct 17th 2010, 09:46
Adding sperm to a limited amount of eggs, so as to implant them all in the womb, removes the need of freezing embryos or frozen embryos being adopted. There is always sperm and egg donation.
MVella
Oct 17th 2010, 09:18
DISCRIMINATION this article is shouting at me - nothing else than for the governement giving preference once again married couples. Women in 'stable' relationships? What do you call stable? 1 year - 2 years - 5 years? Knowing this government, they will always find a loop hole on that one for not offering the service. What about the women who have so much love to give and would be able to offer a child a caring home, but just can't find that right man in their lives. Do they need to go out and have 1-night stands in the hope of getting pregnant? What about the men who have lovely wives but become a widower and don't want to remarry but would like to have a child? The whole report is a step in the right direction.. but do it right .. not half way like so many things in our country... Don't discriminate ..
C.Scerri
Oct 17th 2010, 12:40
This is not the government - but a se4lct committee of the Parliament made up of both government and opposition members - and these are points of discussion and not final recommendations.
Read well before you comment.
Mvella
Oct 17th 2010, 21:21
I read well dear C. Scerri. If you would have read yourself slightly more carefully I indicated the word 'report'. Everybody with the slightest intelligence knows that that is not a final decision. However, thank you for taking the time to point out the obvious.
''This is not the government - but a se4lct committee of the Parliament made up of both government and opposition members - and these are points of discussion and not final recommendations' ... If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck you are telling me it's not a duck?? ...
C.Scerri
Oct 17th 2010, 22:51
My point that you are pointing to the government: "nothing else than for the governement giving preference once again married couples." and "Knowing this government, they will always find a loop hole on that one for not offering the service." still stands.
The report was acceptable to both the Government's and Opposition members, none of the members issued out any minority report (they have a right to do so). This means that it was fully acceptable to both and not only to the Government!
So in this case it neither walks like a duck nor talks like a duck and hence it is not a duck, if anything it might be a goose!