[attach id=216210 size="large"]Photo: Matthew Mirabelli[/attach]

Nationalist MP Edwin Vassallo yesterday suggested that the Embryo Protection Bill should include unequivocal clauses stating that the right to life starts at conception.

This, he said, would provide guidance to future generations as to what the legislator had in mind and preventing them from amending the law in such a way as to depart from this principle.

He said that such a proposal had been agreed between the two sides when the House Social Affairs Committee was debating its proposals for this Bill.

Mr Vassallo said the law should also include an obligation for adequate counselling to be provided and legislate the freezing of oocytes, and not of embryos, except in very specific cases.

He said the debate revealed inherent differences between the two parties. The Opposition had described the Bill as “sheer folly”. It wanted a more liberal market, giving specialists more say in the matter, even if Labour MP Anthony Zammit did point out that God forbid one had to end up with “an embryo market”. This was what the Bill was trying to prevent.

The Government’s aim was not just to have IVF procedures available but to have a procedure that gave the best results possible, protecting life and the adults who were about to undergo the procedure.

He said it was not possible to limit IVF procedures to married couples, which were not necessarily always the most stable, but there had to be an authority or an agency to establish whether a couple was eligible as prospective parents. This prevented a liberalised market.

Mr Vassallo also laid on the Table of the House an executive summary of the moral and medical guidelines on IVF gathered by the Social Affairs Committee. He quoted the Bishops’ pastoral letter, which said IVF legislation should aim to protect and respect the value of human life, physical integrity, the value of marriage and sexuality in marriage.