Malta: proposed amendments to IVF law. Alarm raised by Catholic organisations, “disguised eugenic practice”

Some fifteen Catholic organisations are challenging the Maltese government’s proposed changes to the in-vitro fertilization (IVF) law which would introduce a eugenic practice. Under the proposed changes, embryo selection would become “a tool to enable the selection of which baby will live and which baby will be frozen in perpetuity”. Indeed, the law would allow pre-implantation genetic testing to detect possible genetic disorders in embryos, with a view to implanting the healthy embryo. “The government is trying to mask” this fact by implying that “discarded embryos could still be up for adoption”. “In the last two years”, however, “the stockpile of frozen embryos has risen from 180 to over 300 this year – no mention of any having been adopted”. One wonders “how embryos discarded by their own parents would be considered for adoption by others”. The fundamental principle is that “no person should determine who is to live and who is to die”. But the proposed amendments to the IVF law are “fundamentally discriminatory” in that they imply that the “lives of people living with unwanted genetic conditions are valueless” since the amended law would allow for “human embryos with the same genetic conditions” to be discarded in the future. The government is therefore called upon to “consider the ethical and moral implications that this eugenic law would introduce and to launch a proper consultation on the review process”.
Sarah Numico