When Serracino Inglott said yes to freezing

Former PN ideologue Fr Peter Serracino Inglott would have found himself at odds with the coalition of right-wing politicians, evangelists and conservative Catholics opposing embryo freezing. “I cannot see any reason why embryo freezing should be banned,” Serracino Inglott, the leading theologian and ethicist, told a parliamentary committee nine years ago. Neither could he see any “threat that this would cause a breakdown in society or even any threat to the life of the embryo.”

It is the sober and scientific arguments presented by ‘PSI’, contrasted with the alarmist, albeit principled stance advocated by former prime minister Lawrence Gonzi that may well represent the dilemma faced by new PN leader Simon Busuttil in steering his party on an issue which once again risks splitting party liberals and conservatives.

A press conference last week convened the first recognizable opposition to Labour’s plans to amend IVF legislation and introduce the embryo freezing previously banned under Gonzi. “If such a law passes, it will represent a conscious decision to end human life and will sow the seeds for abortion,” the former PM warned, setting the scene for the ‘cultural war’ between pro-lifers and liberals.

In attendance were Nationalist MP Antoine Borg, Eurosceptic Alleanza Bidla leader Ivan Grech Mintoff, National Women Council president Mary Gaerty, and TV-evangelist Gordon Pace Manché.

But Gonzi’s declaration seems light years away from Serracino Inglott’s observation that, while true that in freezing the unused embryo may degenerate over time and thus its life be endangered, “there is no absolute obligation to preserve life.”

Such a clamorous statement was made in the social affairs committee in February 2005, as PSI referred to the real case of a couple that used only two of four frozen embryos.

“The other two embryos are now frozen and the couple are already ready to implant these embryos again so that they have other children… I cannot see any reason why freezing should be banned,” he added. “Perhaps there is a need for a law to protect embryos, even if am not so convinced about this… This is because there could be living creatures which may be threatened by certain practices. But the law should not go beyond stopping abuse which is either taking place, or which can take place easily.”

So PSI urged caution in setting limits on the number of embryos produced and urged respect for the competence of the scientific community. “These are matters which should be determined by people with scientific competence not by people whose competence is in the legislative or ethical sphere.”

He was reluctant to have a “legal curator” protecting the embryo, insisting that this role could be fulfilled by doctors. In this sense PSI consistently adopted a technocratic and pragmatic outlook that contrasts with the principled but uncompromiseful stance of those like Gonzi, the pro-life coalition and even Labour MPs Deborah Schembri and Marlene Farrugia who are opposed to embryo freezing. 

Neither would Serracino Inglott be dragged in the argument of when life begins making a sharp distinction between human life, which should be protected, and personhood.

“There are those who think one can be considered a person after 24 hours and others consider one becomes a person after 14 weeks… some say that as long as there is a possibility that cells produce twins one cannot speak of a person… And there are those like St Thomas Aquinas who contend that one only becomes a person when the brain forms,” he told the committee.

Even more controversially PSI was not averse to stem cell research.

While saying that one should avoid producing more embryos than needed, “these could be used for life saving therapeutic reasons.”

The priest went on to say that “there is no reason to forbid this [freezing]… and for this reason I find it difficult to see the need for prohibitive legislation on this subject.”

Morality of Catholic MPs

Serracino Inglott’s reflections on IVF and embryo freezing throw a light on the way left-wing Christian democracy lost its hold over the PN during the Gonzi years, eroding party support among those categories the PN needs to win over to stand a chance in 2018.

That tension could be felt in questions posed by Nationalist MP Joe Cassar – later health minister in 2009 – as he expressed doubts on whether IVF should even be offered in state hospitals. To this PSI replied that the “state has a duty not to ban IVF in its own hospitals because it considers it immoral, while allowing it in private hospitals.”

It was such statements that seem to evoke the high regard PSI was held in by Eddie Fenech Adami, before he retreated further from public life during the Gonzi years. PSI had provided the ideological narrative for the PN’s transformation into centre-left party, having authored the party’s 1987 electoral manifesto. In later years, he was largely missing after 2008, after having being recalled to a strategy group meeting on the eve of the election during which he advised the party to open itself to the green lobby.

This curious aspect of the relationship with the two PN prime ministers and their more ‘secular’ advisor came across very clearly in Fr Peter’s observations on the parliamentary vote on divorce.

He had observed in 2011 that for Fenech Adami, “human beings belong to a zoological species in which when a male and a female form a couple, it is for life (as with a class of pigeons, and unlike cats and other species)”.

But according to Fr Peter, a Catholic politician may well think “it may be thought right not to forbid divorce in order to avoid that cohabitation becomes rife.”

At the end of the day, while defending Fenech Adami from the charge of being anti-democratic by upholding MPs’ right to vote against the will of the majority on divorce, he seemed to suggest that Gonzi should have no problem with conscience had he freely voted for divorce in parliament. “It seems to me unfair to both accuse Fenech Adami of being unfaithful to his democratic principles as it would be to accuse Lawrence Gonzi of being unfaithful to his moral principles were he to decide to vote in favour.”

But it was advice Gonzi ignored, at his own peril, and which may well have cost him the support of a large chunk of voters who saw his stance as anti-democratic rather than principled.

Questioning Catholic orthodoxy

Serracino Inglott strongly hinted that the Papal encyclical ‘Humanae Vitae’ was also questionable; on IVF he presented a strong case against those who seek to ban any embryo freezing on the false premise that a zygote – the cell formed by the fertilization of the sperm in the egg – was a human person. 

He had even opposed a government plan to entrench the criminal ban on abortion in the Constitution, arguing that this showed a lack of confidence in the democratic process.

What is sure is that when advocating Christian Democracy, PSI was more concerned about concepts like pluralism, social justice, subsidiarity and the welfare society than with bans on contraception, IVF or divorce.

Serracino Inglott’s legacy could help Busuttil steer his party to more liberal pastures, side-stepping to the left and still defending the common good on topics like the environment and sustainability.

But the vociferous stance of his predecessor against embryo freezing, the strength of conservative grassroots and the temptation to flirt with Labour’s dissenters, may well push Busuttil in the other direction.