Discussing the amendments to the Embryo Protection Act, Health Minister Chris Fearne spoke of the altruistic aspects of producing more lives and happy families. Here one poses the question: What altruism will the children benefit from when they are being deprived of the possibility of knowing their origins and identity, biological parents and family?

What a pathetic heritage it is to bequeath to a nation a law that permits the donation of a child to a person or a couple as a gift from the government to satisfy an adult desire – perfectly legitimate as it may be – but which ignores the basic rights of the child.

Altruism within this context is truly admirable where it is evident in the selfless love of foster parents for the children they care for, or adoptive parents who do their utmost to help their adopted children to discover and encounter their biological parents. Being so genuine, this altruism is generally rewarded by even more appreciative love from children.

Children brighten the lives of those around them but one should not strive to have them at all costs and at the expense of the child’s own interests, rights and dignity. Children should not be considered as off-the-shelf commodities. As the leading article of the Times of Malta (April 18) correctly concluded: children are not consumables.

Every child’s right to naturally bond with their mother in her womb should be safeguarded as much as possible, as is ensured when children are ethically conceived in their mother’s womb through IVF. This has been the case since January 2013 following months of responsible debate.

Authentic altruistic love – devoid of any advantage taken of a situation – presents an opportunity to suppress egoism in anything we do in life. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr: “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the creative light of altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

Seeking to satisfy adult needs should never be allowed to blind us to the eventual needs, rights and feelings of the vulnerable precious child.

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