Doctors, social workers and health professionals have formed a group to lobby against the freezing of embryos.
The Professionals Against Embryo Freezing - as the group is called - said today that it was disappointed by the recommendations of a parliamentary committee, which, it said, was calling for the setting up of a national embryo freezing service.
Group head Dr Miriam Sciberras, a dentist, and committee member Pierre Schembri Wismayer, head of the Anatomy Department at the University, insisted that human life started at conception and the embryo therefore was human life which should not be frozen.
You do not go about freezing your friends, Dr Schembri Wismayer said to stress his point.
While it was being claimed that freezing embryos would reduce costs and discomfort for women who sought IVF treatment to bear children, Dr Schembri Wismayer said there could be no price on human life.
"The freezing of embryos is a offence against human life at its most vulnerable. It exposes the embryos to harm and death," the group said.
Experience abroad showed that where embryo freezing was available, an excessive amount of embryos was produced and many embryos were discarded or did not survive thawing, the group added.
"Presently, in Malta, all embryos produced by IVF are implanted, so as to give them an equal chance to develop fully. We as a lobby group which values human life from its very beginning, strongly reiterates that the IVF legislation now under discussion should continue to affirm this practice," Dr Schiberras said.
Nationalist MP Jean Pierre Farrugia, who headed the committee which recommended that embryo freezing should be permitted, said earlier this month that he would be allocating part of his MP honoraria rise towards fiscal incentives to encourage couples to implant or adopt frozen human embryos left over after IVF treatment, a position which drew criticism from the group Gift of Life. It described the proposal to permit embryo freezing as unethical.
Dr Farrugia argued that embryo freezing was medically beneficial for two reasons: It prevented the implantation of multiple embryos in the womb, which may result in higher risk multiple pregnancies, and it avoided the need to have to stimulate the woman’s ovaries by hormones to harvest the ova.
GIFT OF LIFE WELCOMES NEW GROUP
In a statement, Gift of Life welcomeD the formation of the ’Professionals Against Embryo Freezing’.
"we are absolutely delighted that a group of professionals, armed also with scientific, ethical and medical backgrounds has now formed in the defense of human life from the objectionable practice of freezing.
"There was always the danger that people in general would not recognize the clear dangers presented by the recommendations made by the select committee, in favor of the freezing of human embryos as part of regular IVF treatment," GOL said
"This group has organized itself at a very critical moment in our country’s history."