Godfrey Farrugia wants parliament to have a pro-life group

Partit Demokratiku MP Godfrey Farrugia has said he would be proposing the establishment of a pro-life group that was in favour of “human dignity, inclusion and equality from conception to death”.

Speaking during a parliamentary debate on the Embryo Protection Authority’s budget, Farrugia said the group would allow its members to no longer be “afraid to show their face and express themselves”.

Farrugia said he would be asking Speaker Anglu Farrugia for guidance on setting up the group.

The former Labour whip began his speech by describing the debate as “the House deciding whether the public’s money would be used to save lives or whether it will be used to consciously decide to endanger the lives of some, when their life is at its most vulnerable”.

Farrugia said he was proud to have been the minister to implement the “three phases” of the IVF procedure in a holistic manner, including the Human Resources side of the procedure.

Emphasising that every fertilised egg represented a distinctive human being, Farrugia reminded those present that according to the Civil Code, embryos are considered to people.

He said that when in 2015, the Prime Minister spoke of the introduction of embryo freezing, he asked, and had not been given an answer, to the question of how parliament could speak about advances in civil liberties when it was ready to not offer protection to human life at its most vulnerable.

“Nobody can say that anyone in this chamber is conservative simply because they protect the fundamental right to life,” Farrugia said. “What is wrong is wrong, minister Fearne.”

He noted that the rate of success of IVF in Malta was 20.88%, while that abroad, which used embryo freezing was 30%.

“Is it possible that we are prepared to sacrifice human life for better indices,” Farrugia said.

He accused the Labour Party of being ashamed to state facts about the embryo freezing because it was afraid to lose votes, while appealing to Labour MPs to be “conscientious objectors”.

Farrugia appealed for the protection of life, while being inclusive in a diverse society and for the reconsideration of embryo freezing, which he referred to as murder.

“If social justice is what we are after the government should provide these people with free medicine,” he said.

Furthermore, he said a proper and informative public consultation on a gamete donation service could result in an “altruistic” and ethical system through the introduction of the necessary safeguards and changes to the Embryo Protection Act.