Muscat slams ‘half-baked’ IVF draft law, but will support amended bill

Opposition leader Joseph Muscat branded a draft IVF bill that will introduce the science of egg freezing, as opposed to embryo freezing, "a half-baked law full of shocking details" that would humiliate parents, children and health professionals.

Muscat, whose party is seeking to approve the law only on condition of specific amendments to the bill, said in an impassioned speech that "science should be the determining factor" in drafting the law.

The Labour leader also proposed that the amendments at committee stage should be done at a plenary level to ensure the debate on IVF is given its due importance in the House.

"The crux of the law is the details which will be dealt with at committee level," Muscat said, proposing double sittings next week to ensure the law is approved by the end of the week.

Muscat pointed out the five-man Embryo Protection Agency, the regulatory authority proposed in the draft Embryo Protection Act, as the biggest stumbling block for the Opposition.

"This will result in people being granted access to the treatment on the basis of who they are and who they know. Let us eliminate this immediately," Muscat said of the agency that is supposed to issue licences to couples entitled to free IVF on the national health service.

"This is like having couples applying for a permit to have children. This is humiliating. It is intolerable, a big brother concept," Muscat said, adding that the law placed suspicion on the those who made use of the treatement.

"It must be the specialist to decide what treatment is offered to couples and not an authority or a new bureaucratic authority. We do not need more red tape. The authority must oversee the sector but it should not decide who is eligible and play big brother."

Muscat also pointed out that another grey area exists in regards to couples who are referred for further treatment abroad. He said the specialists referring couples abroad should not be liable to legal action if the proposed treatment does not conform with the Maltese law.

Muscat also said Labour wanted to seek less legal regulation on the implantation of a maximum of two embryos, as laid down in the law, and more authority granted to medical professionals.

"The decision to determine whether two or three embryos should be implanted should be left to specialists to determine according to best medical practice," Muscat said, likening the draft law to a straight-jacket. "Specialists should be free to decide on a case-by-case basis."

He also said that doctors should be free to decide on which cases merit embryo freezing, instead of adopting the law's force majeure conditions for couples who die during the fertilisation process.

Independent MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, who has pledged his support to the law, was present for Muscat's address and left the House as the Opposition leader was ending his speech.

Muscat praised the 2010 Farrugia report that had proposed embryo freezing, saying the report was superior to the law. But he added, the choice was to "either postpone the draft law even further, or amend the current draft so as to salvage it."

The draft law proposes a ban on embryo freezing, and instead allows the fertilisation of up to two female ova while all other ova can be frozen and used for further fertilisation.

Muscat took time to refer to himself as a person who "proud to be a liberal", an obvious reference to conservative Labour MP Adrian Vassallo's claim on Monday that liberals were "pigs" - Vassallo will not be voting for the law.

In justifying Labour's support of the Embryo Protection Act, Muscat said the law will be a compromise but, inevitably, imperfect. He also denied determinedly that embryo freezing was tantamount to abortion, saying such a view was akin to the scaremongering tactics used by the anti-divorce camp during the 2011 referendum.

He said that despite the wide parliamentary consensus on embryo freezing, a new Labour government would guarantee that the law was not shelved and ensure the treatment is available for free to couples.

However, Muscat fell short of defining which couples should be granted access to IVF treatment. The current draft only allows access to married couples and other couples in stable relationships.

"The draft law insults and humiliates parents, children and professionals and we will attempt to amend it and better it," Muscat said, added that the Opposition will vote in favour at the second reading, because the IVF sector had to be regulated.