On IVF, our MPs are missing the wood for the trees

Life is precious. All life, of any form. Human life is an amazing gift, the beginning and end of which has been debated for millennia, with the quest for definitive answers being no closer today than when the questions were first pondered. Yet what the brightest philosophers and scientists have for thousands of years been unsuccessful at defining, 65 members of parliament are being asked to condone 'on faith'.

And yes, 'faith' - of the Catholic variety of course - is behind the inconsistencies in the current IVF law under consideration, a law which should be rejected and re-thought. Science, medicine, and human rights are nowhere to be found in this bill, except in the flimsiest of pseudo shadows. In one stroke, it aims to restrict the practice of IVF, disenfranchise same-sex couples, prevent surrogacy or sperm donation, ban freezing of zygotes, and subject prospective parents to authorisation by a bureaucratic board.

That the PL is not outright rejecting this, but coddling and coaxing it, is nothing short of an affront to their liberal and progressive claims - Joseph, I hope you're reading this.

Mis-named the 'Embryo Protection Act', the bill has little to do with IVF. Instead, it is a thinly veiled attempt to impose archaic concepts of procreation on some of the most emotionally vulnerable members of society who hope and dream of finally being able to nurture a human life.

At the heart of the bill is the seemingly innocuous belief that life begins at fertilisation, but without considering the bigger picture of the inconsistencies in such belief, or where it could lead. Make no mistake though, that those pushing this agenda know full well the path they want to lead us down.

Fertilisation is not conception. Naturally, fertilisation occurs in the fallopian tubes when an egg is joined to a sperm. Conception happens 8-18 days - on average 14 days - later, when that pre-embryo implants in the uterus. This difference in definition can be found in any major medical dictionary, and is fully supported by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. In fact, this distinction is the demarcation between a contraceptive and an 'abortifacient'. The ACOG also quotes studies which show that between 30 and 50% of all fertilised eggs fail to implant... naturally.

Those statistics present a huge problem for the agenda being pushed by our current EPA bill - and especially for Catholics. You see, add the percentage of miscarriages to that of failed conceptions, and - if life truly did begin at fertilisation - each year there would be more babies who died then were born. Yet, no priest gives them last rites, nor are they buried in Catholic cemeteries, so what happens to the 'souls' of these supposed human beings?

Viewed from the perspective of rational, real science, there is little difference in the number of discarded or unused pre-embryos, through freezing or otherwise, then happens in nature all by itself.

An 'embryo' is also the stage of development after implantation up to about the eighth week of gestation where the embryo begins to develop major structures and is then referred to as a 'foetus'. What the EPA aims to 'protect' are not embryos at all, but properly 'pre-embryos'.

But its real aim is to move back the goalposts of when human life begins to a point which, as already shown, presents a logical absurdity for the same religious-based definition. That shift can have only one purpose, which is also supported by that same religious viewpoint: to ban contraception as well.

Birth control pills and IUDs act to prevent ovulation, to prevent fertilisation... and to prevent conception (implantation). There is no way to know which of the three paths has been taken, as such depends on the individual woman, the time within her cycle, and a variety of other factors. Yet, at present, these are perfectly legal in Malta despite the fact that they can perform the very same action that the EPA ostensibly aims to prevent a doctor from doing in a laboratory.

Life is worthy of protection, on that everyone agrees. Yet before government intrudes into the doctor-patient relationship; before it restricts the rights of prospective parents to the best medical solution for their individual needs; before it disenfranchises same-sex and unmarried couples, or potential single parents; before it creates additional emotional trauma for those human beings in the name of 'protecting' another human being, it would be wise to first consider the wood for the trees. Without a properly thought out, scientifically sound, and logically consistent understanding of when human life truly begins, all that will result is injury in the name of religious agenda.

David Pollina is a Rabbi