In contrast to the misguided hysteria generated on the subject of IVF and abortion by a ragbag of ‘pro-life’ groups, it was a relief at last to read an attempt at a reasoned counter-argument to the case for the introduction of an amendment to Maltese law by Fr Robert Soler in his Talking Pointon November 2.

That his arguments were casuistic and self-serving is beside the point. He did at least present a set of arguments devoid of the venom and paranoia displayed by the Malta Life Network. An intelligent debate on IVF is impossible if this group remains determined automatically to equate embryo vitrification with abortion – a fantastical leap of logic deployed for sensationalist reasons by people obsessed by abortion.

Fr Soler and I simply have to agree to disagree on the main thrust of his argument about the science and rationale for embryo freezing. But importantly, he undermined his case further by devoting half his article to arguing that traditional religious beliefs – presumably, in his judgement, Catholic beliefs – should be the ultimate arbiter in the debate. Has he forgotten so soon what Pope Emeritus Benedict said 10 years ago?

“The just ordering of society and the State,” he said, “is a central responsibility of politics… the two spheres of State and Church are distinct, yet always inter-related… the Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the State… A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church.”

Quite correctly, he did not claim that the doctrine of the Church should automatically have the force of law, only that its views should be heard. If the law happens to coincide with the Church’s specific teachings it is because the law reflects some secular value independent of religious belief.

When Benedict visited England in 2011 and spoke at Westminster he went further. He denied that the Church had the role of supplying “the objective norms governing right action”, let alone “proposing concrete political solutions”. Not so, the Pope insisted. The answer to the question “where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found?” was that it should be supplied by “reason without the privilege of divine revelation”.

Following the teachings of any religion is a matter of personal conscience, not legal duty

Pope Benedict was right. Those whose religion tells them they should not participate in the latest reproductive technology are entitled to hold that position. But traditional religious beliefs should play no part in debates which are essentially for society to decide.

There are good reasons for keeping religion out of society. The early Christians were being persecuted until 313 AD, when Constantine made what became the Roman Catholic Church the official religion of the Roman Empire. In its search for domination, the Church – to which Fr Soler and I belong – promptly started persecuting all other religious groups. In the Middle Ages it let loose the Inquisition and destroyed civilised communities that disagreed with it.

Today, we have an even newer religious tyranny, where women are publicly stoned for daring to think for themselves and public beheadings for minor offences are common. It is no good implying, as Fr Soler does, that our religion is somehow superior and has provided society with ethical and moral laws.

How ethical were the laws and morals that subjugated women and slaves and persecuted anyone who questioned the authority and dogma of the Church?

The Church does not hold a monopoly on establishing the moral foundations in society. While its views are to be respected, it is a human institution, like any other, lobbying – as Fr Soler does – for its particular view of the world. It is the humanitarian and moral rules of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, of the Enlightenment and the 18th century Age of Reason that gave us the fundamentals of modern civilised society.

We live in a world of disagreements, many of them based on divisions of religious opinion. Too many of these fissures are violent and reflect religious attitudes that are limiting and even repressive. In places as various as Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan, the Balkans and Northern Ireland, religious differences lead to murder and war.

In southern US, Christian fundamentalists try to replace biology with creationism in schools and oppose the right of women to control their fertility. The Catholic Church still bans artificial contraception. Some of the worst divisions in society lie in religious differences from the remote past. Antisemitism, for example, Sunni-Shia conflicts and, in Northern Ireland, Protestants and Catholics.

Is the good that religions are supposed to do worth the terrible cost of religious zealotry? Yet there is a view – which Fr Soler clearly espouses – that without religion there would be no ethical basis for life and no reason to be moral.

History and current events emphatically demonstrate that religions have not served the world well. Not only do they create conflict but they demand we view the world – as the current argument about embryo vitrification shows – through the same lens as our more ignorant ancestors hundreds of years ago.

Religions assume that there is one great truth, one right way to live, which applies to everyone. But the reality is that ultimate responsibility for the kind of society which a secular, liberal, parliamentary democracy like Malta should adopt lies in the hands of our representatives in Parliament, reflecting the sovereign will of the people.

Our legislators are elected to a secular Parliament with a duty to cater for the needs of society as a whole, recognising that minorities – such as hundreds of infertile Maltese couples – also have the right to the State’s support. Legislators cannot properly represent the heterogeneous society that Malta has become while being religiously sectarian. There are different faiths within the State, but there can only be one law.

Individuals must decide how to behave in accordance with their own religious or other beliefs. All major religions, including the Catholic Church, accept that in a democracy parliament’s decisions about what behaviour should be lawful are not necessarily the same as what is considered morally right on a purely religious basis.

When drafting or enacting laws, legislators have to consider those who are not Catholics, those who do not accept the Catholic Church’s teachings, and most importantly those who, in all good conscience, take an informed position which differs from its teachings.

It is the duty of society and the State through our elected representatives to weigh up the issues of infertility and the modern, ‘miraculous’ (to use a word which would appeal to Fr Soler) advances in science and medicine on the basis of the interests of the community as a whole, not simply on the basis of private religious beliefs or zealotry. Following the teachings of any religion is a matter of personal conscience, not legal duty. The enforcement of that duty depends not on the law of the State but on personal conscience.

Assuredly, people are entitled to hold a particular religious view on any issue. But this is a matter of private conviction, as opposed to the basis for the enactment in Parliament of any law which applies to everyone.

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