The Justice Minister yesterday insisted there was no discrimination involved in the proposed law to regulate in-vitro fertilisation that bars gay couples from using the treatment.
Putting on his lawyer’s hat, Chris Said argued that the law would be discriminatory had it specifically banned gay couples.
The Bill limits IVF to married or “stable” heterosexual couples and it disallows sperm and egg donation.
Speaking at a meeting with the National Council of Women, Dr Said pointed out that gamete donations will not be possible for all couples, including some heterosexual ones.
The Malta Gay Rights Movement, an advocacy group, has claimed blatant discrimination because sperm and egg donation will be criminalised.
The group insisted this had nothing to do with the protection of the embryo and was based on a restrictive model of the family.
The proposed legislation is called the Protection of Embryos Bill. It does not allow embryo freezing except in extreme circumstances and the frozen embryos could in turn be put up for adoption by a regulatory authority that is to be established.
But even in these circumstances gay couples are unlikely to be allowed to adopt frozen embryos.
The minister said it will be up to the authority to decide who can adopt but in doing so it will have to respect the provisions in the law that speak of heterosexual couples.
“The government’s interest is for children born from IVF to be brought up in a family with a mother and a father. We feel this is better for the children,” he said.
A concern raised by the National Council of Women was that the law did not define what “stable relationship” meant.
Dr Said shifted the onus on to the authority to define what a stable relationship was but the law did set parameters for this.
He insisted the Bill was offering couples a bigger opportunity than what was currently available on the market, since it allowed women’s eggs to be frozen, reducing the need for hyperstimulation.
Without giving detail, Dr Said added the Bill will be improved but its main principles, such as the protection of the embryo and the ban on sperm and egg donation, were not negotiable.