The end of the summer holidays is here and Parliament resumes today. It has been a hot, restless summer for those of us who work to promote the local pro-life culture. We have a law that works to help couples seeking fertility treatment without compromising human embryonic lives. However, out of the blue, we are now faced with a barrage of flashy articles hailing the onset of a new age of IVF and suggested review and, possibly, renaming of the Embryo Protection Act.
We have heard a self-proclaimed expert women’s group promoting sperm and egg donation, embryo freezing and surrogacy. This plethora of treatments, funded by taxpayers’ money, would be available to anyone who desires to have a child.
They forgot the most important part of the equation: these treatments produce real, live children, not objects.
Before the present law was enacted, all the ethical, scientific, legal and moral arguments were brought to the table to make sure that, while infertile couples are offered help if they choose IVF, the interests of the child born of these techniques is safeguarded as much as possible.
The Embryo Protection Authority represented at the inter-ministerial committee set up to discuss these changes is voiceless in promoting the interests of the unborn. Consultations that were speedily conducted seem to be just an exercise in calculated damage control rather than seriously evaluating the proposals raised.
What does all this mean? Where is the bioethics consultative committee? Why is this committee silent too? Will it be involved in this media circus? Let us keep in mind that we are talking about human lives.
Human embryo freezing is the indefinite suspension of a new human life in an icy limbo. The parents of these infants also suffer in silence. They are often torn over the fate of their frozen embryos and, in hindsight, would not have chosen this option as one can see from these quotes: “There is no easy answer” and “I can’t look at my twins and not wonder sometimes what the other nine would be like. I will keep them frozen for now. I will search in my heart.”
All too often, potential parents who embark on IVF treatment that involves embryo freezing may not always be fully aware of the fate of their surplus embryos. The exponential growth of this surplus of orphaned frozen embryos creates a huge ethical dilemma.
In Malta, our law prevents all this wastage of human lives. Why should we change it?
The donation of egg and sperm is also far from being an altruistic practice. It hurts the child as well as the infertile partner.
There is nothing unconstitutional about restricting IVF to protect the child’s best interests
Donor conception is a conspiracy by three parties, namely, the clinic, the recipient mother and the sperm donor. It deliberately create a child that will be deprived of a normal, meaningful relationship with his/her biological father, mother or both.
Children born from these treatments, now adults, are speaking out against these practices. They speak out about their identity problems and the pain of not knowing their roots. They are angry that they were ‘used’ to satisfy the need to parent at any cost. They are angry at the denial of the child’s ingrained desire for a mother and a father.
Millie Fontana, a child of a lesbian conceived by donor, recently spoke out against her own conception: “Nobody wants to listen to what lies at the other side of the rainbow.” She spoke about the consequences of redefining marriage on children. For her, this meant redefining parenthood and redefining her childhood! Although loved and cared for, she always felt she was missing something. She always wanted a father, stressing that having a mother and a father mattered.
She voiced her pain eloquently in a presentation, saying: “Was I homophobic when I pleaded to know who I was? Why is the government pushing an agenda based on dishonesty? In same-sex relationships it always takes a third party to reproduce a child. How can society ignore this reality? How are psychologists and doctors going to treat me for fatherlessness?”
Our embryo protection law cares about the child born of these techniques. It prevents heartache such as these because access is restricted to heterosexual couples. There is nothing unconstitutional about restricting IVF to protect the child’s best interests.
The ethical, emotional problems that are unleashed by dismantling the Embryo Protection Act should bring our politicians to their senses and make them realise the grave consequences of such irresponsibility.
Miriam Sciberras is chairman of Life Network Malta.