Pulse, the Labour-leaning student body, has urged the Opposition to explain its stand on in-vitro fertilisation.

“If the Opposition wants to be credible, it must engage in a healthy discussion in Parliament on how the law could be more effective for those in need,” Pulse said in a report yesterday.

Pulse felt the need to evaluate the IVF policy to fill the void of discussion on civil rights by students’ bodies. It said that Malta could not “invest” in “half-baked civil rights”.

“It is ironic how we are debating whether gay couples should be eligible for IVF or not while we are still rejecting official recognition of homosexual relations,” the organisation said.

The report recommends that the Government consider making the law also applicable to “other types of families”.

Moreover, Pulse is calling on the Justice Minister and MPs to reconsider the process of embryo freezing.

“While oocyte vitrification (egg freezing) should be provided for couples who may feel more comfortable using this method on moral grounds, there is no need to ban the other form of in-vitro fertilisation,” it said encouraging the availability of both methods.

The Bill tabled in Parliament does not make provision for the controversial embryo freezing but also restricts the number of eggs that can be fertilised to two. Practitioners have by and large been critical of this, saying that the law would be too restrictive. However, recently there has been an indication that the limit on fertilised eggs could go up from two to three.