It has been said that the freezing of embryos makes IVF (in vitro fertilization) treatment more efficient and safe. Apart from ignoring the obvious, namely that IVF treatment has its complications and is never 100 per cent safe for the woman or the embryo, the latter statement also seems to suggest that efficiency should be the yardstick that justifies our actions.
However, we are missing the fact that when proposing that embryos are frozen, many of them will invariably be destroyed after remaining unclaimed. The desired objective – pregnancy – is being used to justify the means, namely freezing, to attain it.
Human value and significance does not rest exclusively on an individual’s ability to contribute to society; it is not limited or solely defined by one’s ability to walk or feel pain or emotion, talk, love, or work.
Our worth and humanity rest in the essence of our nature as being human from the outset. This includes our potential to continue to develop physically, emotionally and intellectually from conception to a natural death.
If we lose sight of this truth, we are destined to fall into the chasm of death and confusion that has left entire societies alienated and helpless. No doubt, of course, we will certainly later reframe our actions and call them progress as otherwise, how could we ever live with the guilt?
Thankfully our society accepts that everyone’s life is of equal value. Older people are as important and valuable as people in their prime, and an infant is just as valuable as a teenager.
Yet when it comes to the unborn, some attempt to argue, falsely, that human life can somehow be segmented into neat compartments of convenience and worthiness.
The select committee has also proposed that frozen embryos may be adopted. People adopt children. In terming it as adoption and not donation, this proposal identifies and reaffirms the value of the embryo as being more than simply a random assembly of cells.
On the other hand, the select committee’s suggestion to allow for adoption is fundamentally flawed. It solves nothing, as the uptake will invariably be low, for various reasons.
The proposal to permit adoption of frozen embryos is nothing more than a cosmetic attempt to deal with a problem that should be avoided in the first place.
To date, no country has found a way to deal with the ever increasing stockpiles of frozen embryos. There is no reason to suggest that Malta will be any different.
The costs involved in cryopreservation are tremendous, so unwant-ed embryos are either destroyed or donated to science for experimentation and eventually destroyed.
This action alone will, as it has in other countries, further lower the value of human worth to one of commercial consideration.
International Planned Parenthood is positioned at the forefront of the global abortion industry. They developed the slogan ‘Every child a wanted child’. They are saying that a child’s worth solely depends on it being desired, and that it is therefore acceptable to kill an unwanted child.
Frozen embryos are, by definition, unwanted. The situation we are considering is therefore fundamental. For if we allow cryopreservation techniques as part of a standard IVF treatment in Malta, our MPs will, in effect, be ushering in the subtle leading edge of the same culture of death that is enveloping our world by allowing for the creation of unwanted lives.