Bishops renew call to MPs against IVF regulation

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Malta's bishops have sounded their opposition to the legal regulation of in vitro fertilization, in a pastoral letter issued today in which they declare every technical method that replaces the personal conjugal act "is not acceptable".

Archbishop Paul Cremona and Gozo bishop Mario Grech said IVF, which Maltese politicians aim to regulate by setting up medical protocols for doctors who practice the science, was not morally justified under any circumstance, even though it involves "a good cause... the birth of a desired child."

In what sounds like a diplomatic appeal to MPs, the bishops said any civil law relating to IVF must not be based on a "religious" ethical code, but on "natural law... [that] cannot be tarnished or brushed aside by a majority vote in parliament."

"A law which does not safeguard these values is morally wrong... For this reason, men of goodwill who are responsible to draw up legislation are duty-bound in conscience to try and achieve the best possible benefits, or as far as possible, to mitigate dangers."

The bishops also opposed the idea of putting up frozen embryos for adoption, a proposal pushed forward by Nationalist MP Jean-Pierre Farrugia who led the select committee on IVF.

"This is not a solution either because serious complications of a medical, psychological and legal nature may arise; this also poses greater ethical problems."

In explaining their opposition, the bishops said IVF involves the creation of several embryos and that even though some die a natural death shortly fertilisation, these were "being sacrificed and instrumentalized so that a child may be born."

"Both this procedure, as well as the method in which human embryos are being selected in order that a child may be born, confirms that the process, in itself, infringes upon human dignity. "Everything points to the fact that in vitro fertilization methods, which at first glance seem to be at the service of life, are in fact, actually a threat to human life."

On the other hand, the bishops said there such technical methods that are acceptable when married couples are helped to concieve human life in the conjugal act - ostensibly a reference to government efforts at pushing the Catholic 'science' of naprotechology (natural procreation technology) at the Gozo General Hospital.

The bishops expressed deep solidarity with couples who are facing problems of infertility, encourage them not to "concede to the temptation of taking 'easy' solultions simply because these seem technically possible."

But they also tell parents of IVF children in their pastoral letter that their offspring are "still children of God, even if the methods through which they were conceived go against Church teachings and against human dignity."

And they urge the same parents to seek forgiveness from their god: "trust in God's mercy and to seek the road to self-reconciliation."

Reiterating the Vatican's stand on IVF, the bishops said the Catholic Church had already made it clear that freezing of any embryos - a natural by-product of the process itself - exposes them to death or harm by depriving them of maternal shelter and gestation.

Childless couples carrying out IVF can freeze additional embryos which cannot be implanted inside the womb, to be used at a later stage.

But the bishops claim in their pastoral letter that "parents can never concede to the freezing of their children" and that embryos retain "unalienable rights".

"By so doing they would be shirking their responsibility as parents. On the other hand, if their 'offspring' is frozen without their consent, they would be unfairly deprived of their responsibility as parents. Through the freezing of these embryos, mankind is creating new orphanages. Besides this, the future of these frozen embryos is very bleak. The embryo, even while it is frozen, is still in possession of certain unalienable rights. A democratic society is duty-bound to oversee that the laws which protect these embryos are observed."