Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1470553
11 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 12 JUNE 2022 NEWS ment is so vociferous on IVF laws, fearing that the same ethi- cal yardstick applied to PGT can also be applied to many other situations where the quality of life of actual persons can prevail over the life of human cells. A question of flexibility And while one expects the PN to reflect the conservative values of its shrinking cohort of voters, by for example voicing legiti- mate concerns on the risk of a slippery slope leading to eugen- ics, the absence of any nuances in the PN's stance suggests that the party has lost its ability to communicate to a growing seg- ment of the electorate whose values are now more in synch with Abela's pragmatism. In this sense, the ideological- ly driven and militant pro-life movement may well end up be- coming a deadweight holding the PN back from reaching out not just to liberal voters, but to mainstream voters who despite having reservations on surgically aborting a foetus, may be more flexible when it comes to giv- ing couples a chance to become parents even if this comes at the cost of discarding a cell which has no self-awareness. What is surprising in this epi- sode is that despite the genera- tional renewal of the PN's par- liamentary bench, none of the new MPs have taken a different approach to the issue and all have so far rallied behind the ultra-conservative banner. This suggests that the party is para- lysed. Either all the new PN MPs belong to the same mindset, or debate on such issues is no longer tolerated. Sure, one may argue that La- bour's greatest problem is its flex- ibility and the ease with which it prioritises individual needs and even greed over the common good. For while Labour's prob- lem is that it prioritises lobbies over the common good, the PN has traditionally associated the common good with the enforce- ment of a moral code. Moreover one cannot help contrasting the Nationalist Party's inflexibility on the defence of cellular life with its flexibility on development and environmental issues. It is in this same way that the party refrains from taking a clear commitment to raise the minimum wage or revamp lo- cal plans and planning policies. Now under further pressure by its grassroots to tone done its over-emphasis on corruption, the party risks defining itself as conservative rather than a co- alition of people with different mindsets, united by a vision of how the country should be run and modernized, rather than be- ing obsessed by what happens in people's beds and wombs. The PN even does so despite knowing that in Europe, such an attitude relegates it to a loony fringe from which Roberta Met- sola had to distance herself to secure her election as the Eu- ropean Parliament's president. Malta seems destined to a political confron- tation between a lib- eral populism which often sways to the right when it comes to satis- fying powerful lobbies, and Malta's own ver- sion of Mike Pence. In such a scenario one should not be surprised that many choose to disengage. Renewal under Bernard Grech: despite the generational renewal of the PN's parliamentary bench, none of the new MPs have taken a different approach to the issue and all have so far rallied behind the ultra-conservative banner. MATTHEW VELLA 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 Commis- sioner, Tonio Borg, against the preimplantation genet- ic testing. The Church said amend- ments to the IVF law would "undermine the dignity of embryos" because 'discard' embryos diagnosed with specific genetic disorders will be frozen indetermi- nately. The Maltese government wants to introduce PGT diagnosis for embryos, but unlike other countries were unwanted embry- os are discarded or used for scientific research and training, Malta criminalis- es abortion and will there- fore not discard embry- os. Instead, the proposed amendments foresee that the embryos be frozen. The Church said PGT testing was "a discrimi- natory choice... between which future baby will live and which will be frozen on the basis of their genet- ic condition." It set much store by a po- sition paper backed by 35 multidisciplinary experts, including experts in med- icine, science and embry- ology, in a position paper prepared as part of a wider discussion on the proposed amendments to the Em- bryo Protection Act. Despite claiming to "acknowledge the suf- fering of couples who go through IVF or who know that their chil- dren may have genetic disorders", the Church insists on Polar Body Biopsy as an alterna- tive to testing embry- os. Polar body biop- sies are carried out only oocytes, the eggs, and not the fertil- ised embryo, which carries genes from both the moth- er and the father. "Eight out of the nine ra- re genetic conditions men- tioned can be identified without the need to sub- ject the embryos to testing and to subsequent danger. Both parents can be tested genetically for all the con- ditions mentioned, with the exception of Hunting- ton's Disease, followed, if necessary, by testing of the women's eggs by Po- lar Body Biopsy before the formation of the embryo." The Church even de- scribed Huntington's Dis- ease, for which no cure ex- ists, 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 dis- carded embryos will not be assuaged by the pros- pect of adoption. "There is little chance for embry- os with genetic disorders to be adopted and, hence, more embryos will remain frozen. According to the Embryo Protection Au- thority, 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 embry- os on the basis of their ge- netic make-up is discrimi- natory and disrespects the dignity of persons who al- ready live with such condi- tions." 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 reit- erating that society is re- sponsible for safeguarding and protecting the most vulnerable, including the human embryo. Church rallies doctors and academics against PGD testing of embryos and indefinite freezing A different view on PGT Fr Colin Apap MT2 10-11