Proposed amendments to the Embryo Protection Act turn children into a commodity to satisfy another person’s desire, the bishops said on saturday.

In a statement, Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Gozo bishop Mario Grech said the proposed amendments went against the principal aim of the present law which sought to assist infertile couples who were in a stable relationship.

In doing so, it also protected the dignity of embryos from beginning of life and throughout their development into childhood by making sure that they were born and raised by their natural mother and father.

But in the proposed Bill, the child became a commodity to satisfy another person’s desires.

"Anyone who wants a child, whoever he or she may be, can ‘make’ one with the blessing of the proposed law. When the law introduces the possibility of anonymous donors of gametes, the possibility of using another woman’s womb for gestation (surrogacy), the freezing of embryos, it is the law itself that makes the child a commodity," they said.

Read: 104 IVF births at Mater Dei in first two years

The bishops said it was very worrying to consider that these amendments could produce children who might never know their natural mother or father, who would never know the identity of their siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

“The proposed Bill is deliberately introducing a new type of orphans. It is already a source of great pain when children, for one reason or another, are denied the great gift of being raised by their own mother and father. That the law itself is responsible for new situations that will also increase the discriminaton between children, is very disquieting,” they said.

Children, the bishops said, were precious and did not deserve such callous treatment. They deserved to be safeguarded in their physical, emotional, psychological, moral, and spiritual needs. They were the future generations that would reap what was being sown today.

“We are also troubled by the proposal of the freezing of embryos by choice. There are many other ethical problems associated with embryo freezing including the risk that a number of embryos that will be frozen may not be adopted and thus will remain unwanted. Due to adult choices, these children conceived by technology may never see the light of day.

“Our appeal is directed towards those who are responsible for this Bill so that they truly protect life and human dignity and do nothing that will undermine the rights and well-being of the child,” they said.

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