From Dr A. Vassallo MD, MP

Dr Pierre Mallia opened a Pandora’s Box when he held forth that doctors who refuse assisted reproduction to unmarried couples “break part of the Hippocratic Oath’’.

He declared: “If Parliament passes a law reserving assisted reproduction for married couples only, doctors still have the obligation to provide it to unmarried couples who need it. I will be one of the first to do so.” (TMIS, 27 February).

He held that “such a restriction creates problems with patients rights, because doctors cannot refuse treatment to those who need it, as they would be breaking part of the Hippocratic oath they took when they graduated, which states: I will apply, for the benefits of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of over-treatment and therapeutic nihilism”.

Dr Mallia, who is president of the Malta College of Family Doctors, has admitted that “some doctors refuse outright to help patients in this category. It is only now that he is bringing the Hippocratic Oath in his equation.

Now, he is saying that “you cannot distinguish between different people”. Would he not “distinguish” if a capricious young girl, who never had a spouse or partner, were to ask him for assisted reproduction?

He has not ventured this far but he is exercised by the thought that Parliament may pass a law restricting in vitrio fertilisation (IVF) solely to married couples. He holds that doctors cannot distinguish between different people and that doctors cannot restrict technology to people who fit their concept of marriage.

Doctors have their ethics. Some, I would

say most, listen to their conscience. Many

remain faithful to a moral code and cling faithfully to the view that the so-called new morality, in its undated form, is, too often, the old- immorality condoned

It explains why there are still many honourable doctors who, on Dr Mallia’s evidence, refuse to be associated with assisted reproduction for unmarried couples.

Adrian Vassallo