The government is absolutely right to review the efficacy and effectiveness of the Embryo Protection Act, passed four years ago. It has a duty to ensure that a law, once passed, achieves what it was legislated to do. And that the greater public good in the widest sense is being served by it.

The Embryo Protection Act was passed by the last Nationalist government after several years of resistance and procrastination. It is clear now that the law owed more to Religio than to Patria. And not just to religion but one religion.

Although the Church has never officially defined when “ensoulment” occurs, Roman Catholics believe that the soul is present from conception. Catholic religion has remained unequivocal on the moral status of the embryo. It has a special standing because of its potential for development to become a human person. It is therefore sacrosanct and inviolable.

However, the Catholic Church is unique in its position. Other major religions hold different views.

Judaism, which gave us the Ten Commandments, has a wide range of different traditions on this subject, from the ultra-conservative to the most liberal. In general, however, Judaism regards the embryo as containing life in potential, to be treated with utmost care. But it also holds that the embryo does not have the same status as a human being. For Judaism, life does not begin fully until birth. The Jewish view is that the embryo is not considered inviolable. Historical Rabbinic teaching indicates that a foetus is not given the same moral status as a person.

The Christian view – except for the Catholic faith and Evangelical Protestants – holds that human beings are made in the image of God and this forms the basis for the dignity accorded to them. The ‘gradualist’ perspective held by the Church of England recognises that it is inappropriate to speak of a 14-day-old embryo as a person and that it is not inviolable.

The Islamic view is that the viability of life begins with the implantation of the embryo. Most Muslims believe that ensoulment happens at 120 days, although with the improved understanding of embryological development that was brought on by modern science some Islamic leaders have suggested that ensoulment takes place at 40 days.

From a Hindu perspective, a religion that is about 4,000 years old, the belief is that the divine spirit enters the body at the seventh month of gestation. The emphasis of sacredness is put on the level of consciousness, with that of a 14-day-old embryo not even being considered equal to that of a plant.

It is clear that with each major religion embracing such a wide range of different views, it is impossible to subscribe to one moral status of the human embryo from a particular religious perspective.

The Catholic Church does not hold a monopoly on what is moral, as its global paedophile scandal attests. Believers should not think that they alone can define the nation’s morality.

The so-called ‘right-to-life’ lobby, represented in Malta by a ragbag of organisations under the banner of the Malta Life Network (perhaps amounting in all to about 1,000 members), has pressed for the recognition of the rights of “the unborn child” from the moment of conception. This has led to some of the extravagant positions taken in this newspaper about any change to the law.

It is vital that laws passed remain predominantly secular and kept separate from matters of faith

It has misguidedly encouraged the public to think of embryos as if they were children, or ‘babies’, and to regard scientific advances in medical procedures, including human reproduction involving freezing human embryos, as leading ineluctably to the introduction of abortion in Malta. Their moral indignation invariably takes the place of argument.

Such public scrutiny is not intrinsically wrong if it leads to a robust and well-informed system of regulation. But a country’s laws should be based on argument, not on sentiment. The role of the embryo in human fertilisation entitles it to respect and protection. But this is a long way from recognising it as the moral equivalent of a child.

An ovum is a living cell, as is a spermatozoon. Both can be described as alive. The cluster of cells which is the embryo is likewise alive. But this is not the same as saying it is a human person or a ‘baby’.

The question is: at what stage of development should the status of a child be accorded to an embryo of the human species? Different people and religions answer this question in different ways.

Fertilised eggs and embryos lack any capacity for personhood by any standard of neurological functioning. They cannot laugh or cry, feel frustration or satisfaction, let alone learn or make mistakes. In short, they are nothing like real ‘babies’. To declare them as such is to devalue the ‘personhood’ of actual children.

In the context of IVF, scientific advances have given parents unprecedented medical choice and control. It is axiomatic that this freedom be exercised in the best interests of the mother and the potential child. But when no distinction is made between children and embryos, we lose sight of the basic endowment of physical and mental capacities that a child possesses.

It does not demean the embryo to say that, in its essential role in reproduction, it serves as a means to an end, which should be recognised. To deny that an embryo has rights and interests is not the same as saying that morally and legally we should be able to do whatever we want with it. On the contrary, safeguards have to be put in place to prevent abuse.

However, it is vital that laws passed remain predominantly secular and kept separate from matters of faith. There must be some barriers not to be crossed, some limits fixed beyond which medical advances in the field of IVF should not be allowed to go since these affect not only the value of human life but also the kind of society we live in.

Under the current revision of the Fertility Act, it is a distraction to consider the introduction of surrogacy for gay couples or broadening the law to permit homosexual couples to access IVF procedures. To say this is not to detract from utter respect for homosexual relationships but to focus on the immediate priorities.

Amendments to the law should focus on the key issue of ensuring that the latest advances of human fertilisation and embryology are permitted under our law so that Maltese women may benefit from them in line with women in other advanced societies.

Legislators have to seek the common good, in the widest sense, and to amend the law to achieve it. The law itself, which is binding on everyone in society, whatever their beliefs, is the embodiment of a common moral position. What is legally permissible is the minimum requirement for a tolerable society. Individuals may voluntarily adopt more exacting standards.

Infertility is a heavy burden for an individual couple. It is absolutely right that a progressive country should seek by all means to alleviate it. This does not mean the use of any possible means. But it does mean using all the tried and tested means already available from the great advances in scientific knowledge.

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