Carm Mifsud Bonnici joins ranks of PN dissenters on PGT

Nationalist MP Carm Mifsud Bonnici came down with COVID-19 and was unable to attend the House sitting in which a cross-party vote approved preimplantation genetic testing on embryos in Malta.

But Mifsud Bonnici, a former justice and home affairs minister who hails from the party’s conservative wing, declared he would have joined Adrian Delia, Alex Borg and Ivan Bartolo in voting against the amendments.

Embryo genetic testing will be possible as part of in-vitro fertilisation treatment after parliament overwhelmingly approved changes to the law on Wednesday.

The amendments were approved with 66 votes in favour and three against.

“My position has been clear and consistent inside the parliamentary group,” Mifsud Bonnici said, who requested that his absence from the House is formally not noted as ‘excused’ due to sickness. “I want my position to be unambiguously against the law.”

Mifsud Bonnici said he was against PGT, a testing procedure that allows prospective parents to select embryos free of incurable, hereditary diseases, “because it allows us to decide who gets to live and who gets frozen for eternity.”

Malta’s law will not discard unwanted embryos but keep them frozen.

“PGT fosters the idea that the list of genetic conditions could be widened… creating a dangerous perspective where what is considered ‘defective’ is discarded. It will look at the way we see those who are already born, and passing through similar realities.”