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Eleven babies were born through IVF procedures last week alone, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said this evening, calling for politicians to leave the matter to medical experts.

Speaking at a Labour campaign event in Mġarr, Dr Muscat dismissed as “scaremongering” claims by Partit Demokratiku candidate and former Labour whip, Godfrey Farrugia that the proposed introduction of embryo freezing would pave the way for abortion.

“Embryo freezing is already in our law, and allowed whenever specialists deem it necessary,” Dr Muscat said. “What we need to do is give more discretion to specialists to make that decision. Specialists say the law unduly binds our hands when we could be helping so many more people.”

The Prime Minister insisted that IVF treatment should be open to gay couples, arguing that it was “anachronistic” to discriminate against people on the basis of sexuality with full marriage equality now on the cards.

Answering wide-ranging questions by model Tiffany Pisani, Dr Muscat also highlighted divisions between PN leader Simon Busuttil and PD leader Marlene Pullicino over spring hunting and the construction of a motorsports track.

At a conference organised by eNGOs earlier today, Dr Busuttil expressed himself in favour of both issues, contrary to his coalition partner.

“People need to know exactly what they’re voting for,” Dr Muscat said. “This is just the tip of the iceberg: if you ask them a hundred questions, they will have different answers to 95. The only thing uniting them is that they both dislike me.”

Dr Muscat also referred to documents published on Sunday allegedly showing that former environment minister George Pullicino had ignored expert advice in loosening environmental regulations to allow BWSC to tender for the Delimara power plant.

He said these documents would now be sent to the Auditor General for an investigation to be opened, describing the situation as a “clear test of Dr Busuttil’s credibility.”

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