Pro-life lobby declares freezing of embryos ‘morally offensive’

Gift of Live has called the proposal to permit the freezing of fertilized human embryos as part of a possible future law regulating IVF treatment in Malta, as both “unethical and inconsistent with a pro-life culture.”

“It constitutes a grave offense against human life in its most fragile stage of development and is morally offensive,” spokesperson Chanelle Busuttil said.

GoL said the principal focus of the report is the medical aspects of providing infertile couples with a viable pregnancy.

“However, it does this without considering the deeply unsettling and highly unethical practices involved in achieving this aim.
Critically the report fails to take in hand the ramifications of freezing embryos and the predicament that our country will be faced with as a result of this practice if parliament approves such a morally offensive procedure.


“As has happened in every other country, the permitting of freezing will lead to situations where masses of excess embryos will sit in storage facilities faced with an uncertain future. One cannot forcibly implant these
embryos should infertile couples fall pregnant and then not want to have further children.  To date no country has found a solution for the serious ethical problem of what to do with excess frozen human embryos,” Busuttil said.

Busuttil also said that although the adoption of embryos seems to be a positive measure, allowing infertile couples the option to adopt embryos would only come about as a result of the very problem caused by parliament permitting the production and freezing of
excess frozen embryos.

Gift of Life also expressed its opposition to donation of gametes (egg and sperm donation) saying it would not solve the principal problem of what to do with the “inevitable stockpile of excess frozen human embryos which nobody, possibly not even potential adoptive parents may want to adopt.”

Gift of Life said that the aspect of the report that recommends freezing contradicts the committee’s pro-life declaration.

“If anything it shows contempt for human life in its most fragile stages of development… Gift of Life are proposing that our Members of Parliament reject the recommendation made in the select committee report to freeze embryos in the process of assisted procreation and seek to enact a future law that both adequately respects human life from conception.”