Parliamentary Speaker Anglu Farrugia on Monday advised news portal One News to make it clear that PN MP Simon Busuttil was not opposed to IVF, after the former Opposition leader protested that his words had been twisted.
Dr Busuttil had sought a ruling from the Speaker last Wednesday, after the Labour Party news portal ran a piece titled “Since nature said no, don’t expect help” which seemed to imply that Dr Busuttil had declared he was opposed to IVF treatment.
The piece picked up a speech Dr Busuttil had made in parliament that day, in which he said that "we cannot do things that are bigger than us, like the right to have a child when neither nature nor God gives it to you."
He subsequently complained that One News had twisted his words “beyond recognition" and that his warning concerned embryo freezing and surrogacy, which are both on the cards as part of legislative changes currently before MPs.
On Monday afternoon, Speaker Anġlu Farrugia quoted extensively from Dr Busuttil’s parliamentary intervention, and from the article and video posted on the One News portal. He advised One News to specify that Dr Busuttil had, in fact, stated that he was in favour of IVF as currently practised, and that his declaration was made against the introduction of embryo freezing and against surrogacy.
The heartfelt appeal @presidentMT for a dignified parliamentary debate on the sensitive subject of embryo freezing and surrogacy fell on deaf ears. @JosephMuscat_JM’s @ONE_news_Malta were not able to report my speech in Parliament without distorting it beyond recognition. pic.twitter.com/zhlD8muZif
— Simon Busuttil (@SimonBusuttil) May 9, 2018