Only in Malta. Anybody who has watched the YouTube videos on the Internet, and any half-intelligent person with eyes to see, will know that there are some things that happen only in Malta. We look at these instances of strange Maltese behaviour, sometimes with affection and often with laughter at the irreverence of what’s on offer. But more often with amazement and anger at the sheer stupidity of individuals taking risks with their lives and the lives of others on building sites and on the roads, followed by the stark realisation and embarrassment that these half-wits are fellow-countrymen, brothers under the skin. We throw our hands in the air and say resignedly “only in Malta”.
This was my reaction to the draft in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) legislation, which has been presented to Parliament by Justice Minister Chris Said, and the Maltese Church’s reaction to it. Only in Malta could a piece of legislation, which has been under consideration for several years and whose purpose is to regulate a vital field of medical treatment which has gone unregulated for so long, end up being drafted in such a way as to satisfy nobody − except the ultra-conservative “Pro-Life” elements, and then only just. The ones that matter – the medical profession, those dealing on a daily basis with infertile couples, legislators who have long wrestled with this issue and, most importantly, the many married couples who may wish to avail themselves of this treatment – have voiced understandable concern at its legislative deficiencies.
The Church objected of course and put out an inept pastoral letter to explain its position to the Faithful. Fair enough. The Church in its so-called Magisterium has condemned IVF for the last 44 years since Pope Paul VI pronounced the birth control pill morally objectionable in Humanae Vitae in 1968 on the grounds that the use of the pill was a sinful interruption of natural conception. Later Vatican pronouncements have simply extended that logic to IVF. Not for the first time, the Church has laid itself open to the charge of fighting the advance of science with medieval superstition against anything that might smack of “playing God” as it sees it.
The Church has every right to make its views known. But the manner in which it did so in its recent pastoral letter has left a bad taste in the mouth. One would have thought that after its experience in the divorce debate, the Maltese Church would have taken the lessons to heart and been less strident in the face of another sensitive moral issue.
I can only surmise that the Bishop of Gozo drafted the Bishops’ pastoral letter on the IVF Bill. It bears all the hallmarks of heavy-handedness one has come to associate with Bishop Grech (who earlier this year expressed himself in highly lurid and emotive language on the subject) and none of the intelligence and sensitivity of Archbishop Paul Cremona. More’s the pity.
What should have been mature ecclesiastical guidance on a deeply sensitive subject has ended up offending those who have gone through both the agony and the ecstasy of overcoming infertility through IVF treatment and those waiting for such treatment. Are their offspring really not “children of God” like any other, as the pastoral letter implied, and was it really the “temptation of an easy solution” that led them down the traumatic roller-coaster path of IVF? The Bishops claim they practise holy compassion, but as in the divorce debate have no hesitation in putting the boot in if their Magisterium is transgressed.
The Church, as much as any other group in our society, has a right to hold and to express its views about social or ethical questions. But the Church cannot claim that its doctrine should automatically have the force of law, only that its views should be heard. And importantly, that when it expresses its views it does so with compassion, not offensive over-zealousness as this pastoral letter has regrettably done.
During Pope Benedict’s visit to England about a year ago, he denied that the Church had the role of supplying “the objective norms governing right action” let alone “proposing concrete political solutions”. Not so, the Pope insisted. The answer to the question “where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found?” was that it was to be supplied by “reason without the privilege of divine revelation”.
While I am prepared to respect the Church’s doctrinal position on IVF, therefore – provided it is not expressed in the cack-handed manner of the pastoral letter – it is ultimately the job of our legislators in Parliament, not the Church, to enact laws that benefit the well-being of society as a whole.
Only in Malta, however, can legislators get themselves into the preposterous position of trying so hard to placate the Church that they consequently draw up legislative proposals which fail to achieve their key objective. Regrettably, Minister Chris Said has fallen into this trap. The aim of our IVF legislation should be to regulate the field of assisted reproduction in such a way as to ensure that, within specified reasonable ethical constraints, women who are infertile may benefit to the greatest extent possible from the best medical treatment available, thus leading to a greater chance of parenthood. As the far-seeing Professor Father Emmanuel Agius put it after explaining the Church’s deep reservations about IVF, “although the Catholic Church found IVF treatment morally objectionable, it also believed legislation allowing reproductive technologies could be tolerated for the sake of public order and to avoid greater evil: the unregulated practice of assisted procreation”.
The issue is not about finding a formula which can satisfy the Church’s qualms. It is not possible to achieve that since the Church’s doctrinal position is fixed and immovable. Anything the State puts forward falls foul of this doctrinal intransigence. The State must therefore go for the best solution available ethically and medically regardless of the Church’s reservations. The medical experts and Members of Parliament who have been examining this issue over a very long period have drawn up proposals for regulation specifically with these constraints in mind. The sooner their proposals, devoid of the scruples that mar this Bill, are incorporated into a new draft, the better.
The current Bill falls short of the expectations of the specialists in this field and those of infertile couples. Yet this should lie at the heart of the need for good legislation. The risk is that the restrictive conditions it lays down will penalise infertile couples, thus compromising their opportunity to have a family, and will lead to a flourishing, but humiliating, form of reproductive tourism as Maltese couples desperate for children go abroad to get treatment.
IVF treatment, sensibly regulated, offers the miracle of life to previously infertile couples. It leads in many cases to a married man and a woman having a child, forming a family, enriching a marriage – the very state that the Church and society as a whole desires. It is vital that Malta’s IVF legislation encourages the achievement of this objective, not frustrates it.