Labour, PD come out in favour of gamete donation

Labour and the Partit Demokratiku have come out in favour of gamete donation by third parties, but the Nationalist Party and Alternattiva Demokratika have expressed reservations.

Their stances emerged from a questionnaire that the Malta Gay Rights Movements and the Allied Rainbow Communities had sent to the four parties, to assess their commitments to pro-LGBTIQ proposals.

All four parties gave practically identical answers, with the PL and PD ticking ‘Yes’ for all of the 20 proposals and the PN and AD ticking ‘Yes’ for 19 of them.

Indeed, the sole remaining bone of contention on LGBTIQ policies is that of gamete donation by third parties – which would allow lesbian couples to use a donor’s sperm and gay couples to use a surrogate mother so as to give birth to their own genetic children.

Labour and PD both agreed with this proposal, with the latter arguing that gamete donation offers a social and medical solution for lesbian couples and heterosexual couples where the male partner is infertile.

“In our opinion, these interventions are a form of biological reproduction and altruism should dictate the service of the provider,” the PD wrote.

However, the PN said it is “not ready to consider surrogacy at this stage”, while the AD said that the issue of gametes donation “merits a deep and serious discussion rather than just a yes/no answer”.

Other than that, the parties agreed with every proposal offered by the LGBTIQ lobby – including setting up a gender clinic, granting free hormone therapies to trans-people, introducing anti-HIV medication such as Post Exposure Prophylaxis and Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, mainstreaming LGBTIQ issues in the education curriculum, and addressing the lifetime blood donation ban on men who have sex with other men.

The PN said that it will adopt the model adopted by the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand – allowing men who have not had sex with another man for over a year to donate blood if they meet the other blood donor selection criteria.

The PD said that the ban should apply to all unprotected anal sex and not discriminiate against men. The ban should only be removed when the rate of HIV cases contracted through unprotected anal sex declines. The party argued that out of 20 HIV cases in Malta last year, 19 of them were the result of unprotected anal sex.

“When this risk diminishes to acceptable levels, then the ban on those who practice unprotected anal sex should be removed.”