Eleven organisations and experts have called on Parliament to allow experts and interested parties to participate in debate concerning controversial changes to IVF laws.

In a statement this morning, the signatories referred to President Marie Louise Coleiro Preca’s proposal for a longer period of reflection for all voices to be heard and said that the committee stage debate in plenary, as the government was proposing, would not permit this.

This method would limit debate to MPs, which did not give space to genuine consultation and open debate by the interested parties.

The signatories and experts who wanted to make their voice heard were to be made to seek MPs to be their voice when the matter being debated was a technical and delicate one.

It was not right for an MP to be asked to repeat what an expert could say in a much better and clearer way, they argued.

This procedure would force the interested parties and experts to identify with one side or the other of the political spectrum, reducing their credibility and exposing themselves to criticism that they had a partisan agenda because they approached one MP and not another.

Read: IVF Bill amendments draw concern from 100 academics

Experts and interested parties should have the possibility to move their arguments without any political affiliation, they insisted.

The aim remained to help infertile couples, in full respect to life and the fundamental rights of children born out of this technology, while giving suitable attention to the moral and ethical considerations for the country to have a better law.

The signatories - the Life Network Foundation; the Malta Unborn Child Movement; the Gift of Life Foundation; the Association of Pediatrics; the National Council of Women; the Geneticists, Molecular and Cellular Biologists; the Cana Movement; scientist Jean Pierre Fava; Andrew Azzopardi, dean of the Faculty of Social Wellbeing at the University; the Association for Consumer Rights; and the University Academics Group asked the House to consider a method of debate which would permit the participation of society, in line with the President’s request.

They said that apart from them, there were other associations and experts that also had a contribution to give to the debate.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.