Church rallies doctors and academics against PGD testing of embryos

The Maltese Church has issued its own position paper, backed by various clerics and academics – among them Prof. Mario Tabone Vassallo and Prof. Andrew Azzopardi – as well as former PN grandee and European Commissioner, Tonio Borg, against the preimplantation genetic testing.

The Church said amendments to the IVF law would “undermine the dignity of embryos” because ‘discard’ embryos diagnosed with specific genetic disorders will be frozen indeterminately.

The Maltese government wants to introduce PGT diagnosis for embryos, but unlike other countries were unwanted embryos are discarded or used for scientific research and training, Malta criminalises abortion and will therefore not discard embryos. Instead, the proposed amendments foresee that the embryos be frozen.

The Church said PGT testing was “a discriminatory choice... between which future baby will live and which will be frozen on the basis of their genetic condition.”

It set much store by a position paper backed by 35 multidisciplinary experts, including experts in medicine, science and embryology, in a position paper prepared as part of a wider discussion on the proposed amendments to the Embryo Protection Act.

Despite claiming to “acknowledge the suffering of couples who go through IVF or who know that their children may have genetic disorders”, the Church insists on Polar Body Biopsy as an alternative to testing embryos.

Polar body biopsies are carried out only oocytes, the eggs, and not the fertilised embryo, which carries genes from both the mother and the father.

“Eight out of the nine rare genetic conditions mentioned can be identified without the need to subject the embryos to testing and to subsequent danger. Both parents can be tested genetically for all the conditions mentioned, with the exception of Huntington’s Disease, followed, if necessary, by testing of the women’s eggs by Polar Body Biopsy before the formation of the embryo.”

The Church even described Huntington’s Disease, for which no cure exists, as “a particular disease which will show up later in life (typically after the age of 40 years)” and whose course could be altered by tetrabenazine medication.

The Church is arguing that the government’s freeze-all solution for discarded embros will not be assuaged by the prospect of adoption. “There is little chance for embryos with genetic disorders to be adopted and, hence, more embryos will remain frozen. According to the Embryo Protection Authority, there are already 388 frozen embryos to date that have not been adopted by anybody during the past two years.”

The Church’s experts insisted that no embryo should be frozen forever. “Selecting between embryos on the basis of their genetic make-up is discriminatory and disrespects the dignity of persons who already live with such conditions.”

The experts said that any process that leads to the destruction of embryos was “ethically unacceptable as it results in the destruction of human life” while reiterating that society is responsible for safeguarding and protecting the most vulnerable, including the human embryo.