The Life Network Foundation has expressed disappointment at the amendments approved during the debate on the Embryo Protection Act.

It said in a statement the amendments ignored the rights of children born out of in-vitro fertilisation.

Embryo freezing was being introduced by choice and not in exceptional cases and this was not in the interest of embryos that were not given a chance to be born and whose life was being put in danger.

The amendments, including the fertilisation of a maximum of 10 eggs in the first treatment cycle, with the possibility of having five embryos, three of which would be frozen, was worse than the previous one, when a maximum of three embryos in the first cycle had been proposed.

An embryo could spend up to 20 years frozen until the woman turned 48. They could then be placed for adoption.

The network noted that sperm or egg donation were not to be linked to maternal or paternal responsibility.

The children born were to be intentionally denied their biological parent or parents and the concept that single persons would create children to purposely live without a mother and father was not in the interest of children. It was also not socially fair that children whose biological patents would have already died could also be born.

The fact that these children were to be given access to their mother or father’s identity once they turned 18 or in exceptional health cases did not solve these children’s problems.

The foundation said that the discussion and the work carried out, as well as the meetings the minister had with organisations that expressed their concern, had been completely ignored. This, it said, had not been a consultation exercise in the spirit suggested by the President.