We don’t need to and we should not amend the Embryo law as Martin Scicluna ( January 27) is suggesting. Many facts point in this direction. Instead, we need to andshould activate now the Healthy Lifestyle Act just passed by both sides of theMaltese Parliament.
A few weeks ago Maltese society was given some very good advice, after a very profound study of the embryo freezing issue, by a group of Maltese experts in the fields of medicine, law, psychology, social policy, family studies, disability studies, theology and philosophy. A retired judge of the European Court of Justice and a member of the Ethics Committee of the European Union were members of this group.
The recommendations of the group are that: “The prevailing scientific data and the results obtained from local IVF treatment to date demonstrate that the introduction of embryo freezing in Malta is scientifically unnecessary and unreasonable... On the basis of legal, medical and ethical arguments, the Embryo Protection Act should be maintained as it is, since it strongly upholds the dignity and integrity of the human embryo.”
Scicluna rightly says: “Infertility is a heavy burden for an individual couple. It is absolutely right that a progressive country should seek by all means to allieviate it. This does not mean the use of any possible means.” Very well said.
Then he continued: “But it does mean using all the tried and tested means already available from the great advances in scientific knowledge.” No, we should not use all the tried and tested means. The one we should not use is embryo freezing.
No matter how many gratuitous and feeble arguments Scicluna puts forward about the nature of the embryo, that “it serves as a means to an end”, and about when life begins, and no matter how many times Scicluna tries to degrade and discredit activists in the pro-life movement, the fact remains that in the process of embryo freezing, innocent human lives in their very beginning are discarded, and even killed, even if involuntarily. At times they are killed negligently.
Inspite of repeatedly accusing his detractors that they are not bringing forward “scientific arguments”, he has not done so himself. He does not quote any creditable scientific sources. He seems to act as an authority to himself and pretends to act as an authority to many others. He ignores completely the scientific statements made by renowned scientists and competent medical and other experts in this field.
After fertilisation has taken place a new human being has come into being... this is no longer a matter of taste or opinion
The statement presented by Fr Robert Soler (‘Is human embryo inviolable?’, November 2) is based on science and reason. “Some argue the embryo is not yet human, becoming so only later. Neurobiologist Maureen Condic (University of Utah) responds: ‘Linking human status to the nature of developing embryos is neither subjective nor open to personal opinion. Human embryos are living human beings precisely because they possess the single defining feature of human life that is lost in the moment of death – the ability to function as a coordinated organism rather than merely as a group of living human cells.’ Science, thus, affirms human embryos as living human beings.”
Another very good reason why we should not amend the Embryo Act is given by world-renowned geneticist Jerome LeJeune, professor of genetics at the University of Descartes in Paris who was the discoverer of the chromosome pattern of Down syndrome. Around 1992 he testified to a judiciary subcommittee: “After fertilisation has taken place a new human being has come into being... this is no longer a matter of taste or opinion and not a metaphysical contention; it is plain esperimental evidence... Each individual has a very neat beginning at conception.”
Dr LeJeune also persuasively argued before the court in Davis v Davis (a custody dispute involving seven human embryos) that the human embryo is in fact a human being, a real person. After listening to various testimonies, the court’s opinion was this: “Human embryos are not property. Human life begins at conception. Mr & Mrs Davis have produced human beings, in vitro, to be known as their child or children.”
But Scicluna is never impressed. According to him “the so called ‘right-to-life’ lobby, represented in Malta by a ragbag of organisations under the banner of the Malta Life Network, has pressed for the recognition of the rights of ‘unborn children’ from the moment of conception... It has misguidedly encouraged the public to think of embryos as if they were children, or babies.” The same argument is used to justify abortion.
To help infertile couples have children, besides strenghtening the fostering and adoption services, we should also activate, now, the Healthy Lifestyle Law. The Act establishes and ensures an inter-ministerial lifelong approach favouring physical education and healthy balanced diets for a healthy lifestyle In article 5.1.(g) the Advisory Council on Healthy Lifestyles to be set up by this act has the duty to “encourage a lifelong approach, from conception till old age, to physical activity and a healthy lifestyle”.
Maryln Glenville, a leading nutritionist in the UK, says that the most common cause of infertility is “unexplained”. She contends that while doctors can find no specific or identifiable medical problem at the root, a natural approach can come into play. It’s no good labelling infertility “unexplained”. The answer is to look deeper – at lifestyle factors, nutritional deficiencies and even emotional elements.
“The natural approach to fertility,” she says, “is and has been enormously successful, largely because fertility is multi-factorial, meaning that there are many, many elements that can be at the root of fertility problems. A study conducted by the University of Surrey showed that couples with a previous history of infertility who made changes in their lifestyle, diet and took nutritional supplements had an 80 percent success rate.”
She adds further: “Given that the success rate for IVF is around 25 per cent, it’s worth considering these options.”
In my article ‘Pro-choice on the attack’ (November 24) I had suggested to Scicluna that “there is an alternative, not medical, as in vitrification, freezing and thawing, but physical, emotional, psychological, nutritional, sociological and occupational”. I had invited him to study this alternative to discover that there were other “tried and tested means already available from the great advances in scientific knowledge”, which can offer increased chances for childless couples to have children of their own.
But, again, he made no mention of this method in his last article. He only insisted that we should amend the Embryo Protection law to allow embryo freezing.
Which makes one wonder whether he has a hidden agenda or he wants to please somebody.
Tony Mifsud, coordinator, Malta Unborn Child Movement.