Amendments being proposed to the Embryo Protection Act do not promote equality, but are discriminatory, allowing some unborn children to proceed to gestation and birth while others are frozen, the Cana Movement said on Thursday.

“In the name of equality, the proposed amendments to the Embryo Protection Act attempt to cancel out differences endowed by nature itself, they refute the complementarity of mothers and fathers in the bringing up of children,” it said in a tough statement.

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Saying that it was sensitive to the desire of couples to bear and bring up children, the movement said the law as it now stands struck the right balance between the rights of the unborn child and the interests of infertile couples.

IVF policies should therefore not relegate the rights of the unborn child to the desire to bear children at all costs

However, it called the proposed amendments "a travesty of human dignity" and appealed for people to take a stand against embryo freezing and in favour of the rights of children to be brought up by their natural parents.

"Children are gifts and not entitlements or commodities. IVF policies should therefore not relegate the rights of the unborn child to the desire to bear children at all costs, no matter how noble that desire may be.

"The proposed amendments allow embryo freezing which inevitably leads to embryo stock piling. Human embryos are destined to become frozen orphans in violation of the dignity with which every unborn child should be treated.

"The proposed amendments also contemplate the possibility of anonymous gamete donation and surrogacy. These practices deprive children from being brought up by their natural parents and in some instances from the right to know the identity of their biological parents," it stressed.