President will sign IVF law under protest

President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca will be signing the in-vitro fertilisation law approved by Parliament but clearly indicates she is doing so with personal discomfort.

In an unusual statement, the President said that “after seeking ethical, moral and legal advice from several experts in the field and following a long period of reflection and personal discernment, I have taken the decision to sign the Act”.

And without hiding her personal objections to the law, Coleiro Preca said she was signing it “solely out of respect and loyalty” to the country’s democratic process and to the Constitution.

She reiterated the Constitution did not confer upon her legislative functions except that of assenting to Bills when these are already approved by the House of Representatives.

Coleiro Preca made it amply clear that the decision to sign the law in no way compromised her “firm views and ethical values” on human life, the family and the wellbeing of the unborn child from the moment of conception.

The President said she is signing the Act “in the form” it was presented to her by the government.

Coleiro Preca said she was not one to shirk her responsibilities and rejected the option mooted in sections of the press that she could have absented herself from the country while Parliament voted on the Third Reading of the Bill.

Coleiro Preca’s decision to communicate her discomfort with the law is unprecedented for any president and puts her at loggerheads with the government that pushed for the law. However, her decision to sign the law avoids a constitutional crisis.

“I have always believed that every human being’s dignity and physical integrity should be respected from the moment of conception to the grave. Never should any human being, including embryos, be treated as an object or intentionally put at risk,” the President insisted.

She said that the island’s moral fibre is at risk of disintegrating if human life at any stage of development is disrespected.

The changes to the Embryo Protection Act were approved by Parliament on Tuesday.