In vitro politics: where do MPs draw a line on laws and their faith?

The Catholic church is a social and political movement which pushes its own faith-based agenda. Expecting the church to retreat to the private sphere is unrealistic. Catholicism, by its very nature, is a social and political religion. While left-leaning Catholics tend to focus on social issues like immigration and the minimum wage, right-wing Catholics tend to focus on sexual prohibitions. Some, like Mario Grech, tend to focus on both dimensions.

Mario Grech's position against IVF is identical to that of the Vatican, which is not only against embryo freezing but against IVF itself, which is perfectly legal in Malta to the extent that it is completely unregulated. What is lacking in Malta at present is the availability of a state-subsidised IVF service despite the actual existence of all the necessary equipment in Mater Dei hospital.

Ironically, the tangible consequence of the status quo is that the least well-off who cannot afford to pay private IVF treatment, are denied access to this technology. Ultimately, this makes the availability of IVF an issue of social justice. As Peter Serracino Inglott observed in February 2005, "it is unfair that the government prohibits the full procedure in public hospitals because it deems it immoral while allowing it in private hospitals."

What I find shocking is not Grech's stance against IVF, but the fact that it has taken the present government two legislatures and three reports by two separate parliamentary committees to come up with a law which still has to be presented to parliament.

Ultimately, what counts is not what Mgr Mario Grech says, but what the government and parliament does.

In 2010 in Poland Archbishop Henryk Hose went as far as threatening Polish MPs voting for IVF with excommunication. But Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who like Gonzi hails from the European People's Party, is not giving in to this pressure and an IVF law which permits embryo freezing and provides this service for free in public hospitals is expected to be approved in the next months.

Ironically, while on moral issues the government is submissive to the church, it has no qualms ignoring Mario Grech's equally strong position against the detention of irregular migrants. "The time has come to ask ourselves in all honesty: Is it possible that a civilised country such as ours, having the values we think we are defined by, sees nothing wrong in keeping locked in detention women and men who committed no crime and who are only here because they are seeking another country's protection?" Mgr Grech asked in April 2009.

And on this issue, where I agree with the Gozitan bishop, Mario Grech finds himself on the left of many so-called progressives and liberals who favour even more restrictive policies than those adopted by the present government.

The most controversial part of Mgr Grech's homily was the hint that politicians have to choose between their cultural identification with Catholic liturgy, and their political views.

"It hurts when politicians take up the front seats in liturgical celebrations but are ethically absent when they take up their seats in Parliament."

Although Grech's position on IVF is in line with that of the Vatican, the belief that the zygote - the very initial cell when sperm is fused with an egg - is a full human person is not endorsed by a number of Christian theologians, including the late Fr Peter Serracino Inglott.

While in Grech's worldview the freezing a single, undeveloped cell is equivalent to mistreating or even killing a human person, this view is not a universal human value shared by all or most philosophical traditions in the same way that the condemnation of torture or murder is. The same applies to the Catholic belief that the sexual act should not be divorced from conception (the key reason the church opposes IVF). And since IVF is not illegal, is Grech suggesting that Catholic politicians are duty bound to present a law to ban it? 

The suggestion that Catholic politicians voting for IVF should not attend mass raises a problem for liberal Catholic politicians who make a distinction between personal belief and legislating for the greater good. One may well argue that if IVF is legally regulated and embryo freezing allowed, Catholics will still have every right not to use this procedure.

Even from the church's perspective, it is not clear on which issues Catholic politicians are expected to close ranks. Are they expected to vote against IVF... but not against Sunday shopping? And can they feel at ease at mass while supporting the detention of immigrants, or even suggesting that Malta should have a threshold on the number of migrants it can host? Where is one expected to draw the line? Does a hierarchy of issues exist?

I tend to see a point in Grech's argument against cultural Catholics who suck up to popular religious culture while ignoring the core beliefs of the church. This not just a Maltese phenomenon. In Italy, far-right politicians often stand up for the defence of Christian symbols like the cross while preaching hate against the most vulnerable in society. But by drawing a red line on IVF, the Church risks appearing insensitive to the plight of childless couples and obsessed with the idea of controlling human sexuality.

The best insurance against double standards is to expect intellectual honesty from politicians, based on an ability to say no and yes to the Church's positions on the basis of solid arguments rather than sheer political calculations. IVF is one of those issues where the Church is probably in the minority.

Although on a national level, opposing IVF is more a vote-loser than a vote-winner, IVF does pose a difficulty for politicians who depend on conservative constituencies. This is why it is harder for the PN to accept IVF, even if moral conservatism is becoming increasingly a liability.

In this sense, unlike agnostics, politicians flaunting their Catholicism in public have to explain their position on this issue in terms of their beliefs. But they may well argue that in parliament a Catholic is expected to vote for the greater good and not according to his or her personal beliefs. For as Pope John Paul II put it, "public authority can sometimes choose not to put a stop to something which were it prohibited would cause more serious harm."