The bishops described in-vitro fertilisation as “a threat to human life” in a pastoral letter that also condemns embryo freezing.

Archbishop Paul Cremona and Gozo Bishop Mario Grech issued the letter yesterday on the eve of the publication of a much-anticipated law regulating assisted procreation.

“In-vitro fertilisation methods, which, at first glance, seem to be at the service of life are, in fact, actually a threat to human life,” the bishops said, adding the medical process infringed human dignity.

IVF was morally wrong, they added, because it did not respect the “conjugal unity” of a married couple since conception happened outside the womb with the help of “a third party”.

However, the bishops insisted that children born as a result of IVF were “still children of God”.

The government is today expected to publish a draft of the Embryo Protection Bill, which is meant to regulate IVF, a medical practice in which eggs are fertilised in a petri-dish with the resultant embryos transferred to the mother’s womb.

The bishops described IVF as a wasteful process in which several embryos were sacrificed to produce the desired child.

“Even though a number of these embryos are not killed deliberately but die a natural death shortly after they are conceived, the fact remains that several embryos are being sacrificed and instrumentalised so that a child may be born.”

They also criticised the freezing of unused embryos, a method that ensures embryos are not discarded.

The Church did not consider embryo freezing to be an acceptable solution, the bishops said, quoting the Vatican document Donum Vitae.

A cross-party parliamentary committee two years ago had suggested that embryo freezing be allowed as part of the IVF process to avoid the transfer of more than two embryos to the womb, which would otherwise increase the chance of higher risk multiple pregnancies.

While IVF has been practised in Malta for more than two decades by private clinics, embryo freezing is not done.

As a solution to mitigate against the possibility of having numerous unclaimed frozen embryos, the parliamentary committee had suggested embryo adoption.

But the bishops said the freezing of embryos was “creating new orphanages” and insisted embryo adoption was not an option.

“Parents can never concede to the freezing of their children. By so doing, they would be shirking their responsibility as parents,” the bishops said, adding that embryo adoption caused “serious” medical, psychological and legal complications.

They appealed to the scientific community to carry on with its research to seek “ethically and morally good” solutions for “married” infertile couples.

They also encouraged infertile couples not to take the “easy” solution simply because it seemed technically possible.

“Not only are these solutions morally wrong but they are susceptible to danger in that they are to the detriment of the physical and mental health of the couple, most especially the woman,” they said.

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