The government appears to have passed its first “coalition” test with independent MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando who gave the thumbs up to a draft of the controversial IVF Bill, which will be launched for consultation today.

“By and large we are on the same wavelength,” Dr Pullicino Orlando said yesterday, adding that he might move some amendments during the debate in Parliament.

The Żebbuġ MP, who last week officially resigned from the party and declared himself an independent parliamentarian in coalition with the government, had made his support for the Administration conditional on him being consulted should “any measure that is not specifically mentioned in the electoral programme require my support in Parliament”.

He had a brief meeting with the Prime Minister on Wednesday, the same day that the PN parliamentary group met to approve the document. “We discussed it briefly and, by and large, I agree with the general principle but might be moving some amendments when it is discussed in Parliament,” Dr Pullicino Orlando said.

The Bill is still expected to be controversial and, in fact, the bishops yesterday issued a pastoral letter insisting that IVF was “morally wrong”.

Nonetheless, with this “thorny” Bill negotiated, the government will be all the more hopeful about the prospect of staying the course and avoiding a premature election.

A day after his resignation from the PN parliamentary group, Dr Pullicino Orlando, who spearheaded the campaign for the introduction of divorce last year, had declared that he would be looking forward to seeing the details of the cohabitation and IVF Bills, subtly flagging these as the red lines upon which his cooperation was conditional.

The Bill will be launched today by Justice Minister Chris Said and Health Minister Joseph Cassar.

Dr Said would not be drawn into revealing too much detail on the Bill yesterday but said it would introduce legal parameters to a previously unregulated sector.

“I am not saying that the practitioners in the field are abusing of this lack of regulation because I believe that they are acting ethically. However, the fact of the matter is that there is nothing holding anyone back at the moment,” he said.

In this respect, Dr Said argued that the emphasis of the Embryo Protection Bill – as it is titled – would be the protection of life, which, the Administration believes, starts at conception.

“This is a much anticipated piece of legislation,” Dr Said noted, referring to the fact that parliamentary committees had discussed the contro­versial matter both in this and the previous legislature.

He would not reveal any of the controversial details such as the question of whether the Bill will allow the freezing of embryos, saying only that there was no simple “yes or no” answer to this and, therefore, he would rather explain the details properly during today’s press conference.

He did confirm that oocyte vitrification, the freezing of unfertilised eggs, which is not controversial, would be allowed.

Experts giving evidence before the parliamentary committees that had looked into the matter had said this process should not come at the expense of embryo freezing, which, in some cases, is required.

He would neither confirm whether the process would be made available only to married couples, another controversial issue.

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