I have recently read a captivating article entitled ‘The moral and civil law on IVF’, by Prof. Fr Emmanuel Agius, Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Malta and member of the European Group of Ethics in Science and New Technologies. I was deeply struck by Fr Agius’ statement that “this (IVF) reproductive biotechnology is

fraught with many moral, ethical, social, psychological and emotional issues that cannot be ignored by civil society”.

The world of medicine amply verifies Fr Agius’ tenable position. IVF’s perilous nature is medically undisputed. On 22 September, the National Post reported how a Canadian doctor, John Barrett, frankly pointed out the serious faults of IVF. He said: “What the IVF industry is doing is creating a population of sick babies... that is impacting all society.” Dr Barrett referred to the current phenomenon as an “epidemic of multiple births, largely as a result of IVF”. Statistics in Canada confirm that multiple births in this country escalated by 45% to approximately 12,000 a year from 1991 to 2008.

In another article within the same newspaper, entitled ‘In-vitro fertilisation linked to rare genetic disorders’, Dr Rosanna Weksberg, who supports the employment of IVF, openly admitted that babies born as a result of IVF are 10 times more likely to suffer from genetic problems. Although the origin of genetic problems is still unidentified for Dr Weksberg, the likelihood of what takes place in the IVF process is the amalgamation of infertility problems of the parents together with fertility treatments.

Another difficulty which obscures the IVF issue is when outside donors are concerned. Lack of knowledge of any medical issues of children’s biological parents certainly causes heaps of problems. Last year, the American ABC News reported that Rebecca Blackwell and her 15-year-old son Tyler were trying to find out his sperm donor father. When found, the latter not only refused to reply but his sister told them that her brother suffered from an inheritable aortic heart defect.

Unfortunately, Tyler contracted this serious condition as well. He is on constant lifelong monitoring. Moreover, Tyler’s father donated sperm at three clinics and fathered 24 children. None of them is informed about his health problems, including Marfan’ syndrome, which is a tissue disorder.

An added problem that could easily crop up is when some of his children may unintentionally enter into an incestuous relationship. In the UK, the Sunday Times reported that a British sperm donor has fathered children in 17 families whereas the New York Times said that a man has till now fathered 150 children. In the US many are the cases where donors have fathered 50 or more children. Thus, Josephine Quintavalle, founder of the Comment on Reproductive Ethics, was absolutely right when she voiced her justified concern: “There is a real danger in a small country like the UK for donor-conceived children to meet up unknowingly with half siblings”.

IVF tends to increase serious complications during pregnancy.

Since the process commences outside the mother’s body, it may cause the placenta to evolve poorly later on. Also, women undergoing IVF are more likely to be older and the risk of having health problems is greater. Lastly, on 22 July, the Daily Mail reported that “more than 30 human embryos are created for every successful birth… The figures show that British scientists have created more than three million human embryos by IVF since 1991… Fewer than 100,000 have been successfully implanted into women to result in live births in that period. Nearly a million and a half were discarded in the course of treatment and more than 100,000 were given for research in destructive experiments.” Is IVF perilous?

■ Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap