Unborn Child Movement adds voice to opposition to embryo freezing

Third pro-life group says embryos are ‘unique member of our species’

The Malta Unborn Child Movement has joined a chorus of pro-life opposition to plans to make embryo freezing legal again, saying that providing assisted medical reproductive technologies should not put the right to life of the human embryo at risk.

“MUCM joins other pro-life groups who have questioned the proposed amendments to the Embryo protection act. Maltese citizens have always championed the protection of the unborn child. MUCM calls on all politicians and the general public to reiterate this value of life from conception.”

Spokesperson Tony Mifsud and Grace Attard said that the embryos had “a full genetic code and [are] already a unique member of our species. He or she has a right to be protected and to be treated with respect. This does not include manipulation or freezing.”

The government wants to legislate embryo freezing to introduce it as another IVF treatment after the former PN government outlawed the practice, to introduce egg-freezing technology in 2013.

Under the present law, only a maximum of two eggs can be fertilised while any additional eggs must be frozen and then thawed for fertilisation in successive cycles.

Labour will propose a maximum five eggs to be fertilised during a cycle, and a maximum of two embryos implanted inside a woman at one go.