Minister Owen Bonnici is on record as saying that the government is considering changing the IVF (actually Embryo Protection) Act in order to allow homosexual couples to have children. The current Act does not allow the donation of gametes (sperm and ova) to third parties even if the couple is a heterosexual one. So, as the law now stands, there is actually no discrimination against anybody as it is equally active for all members of society irrespective of sexual orientation. When the then Bioethics Consultative Committee (BCC) discussed this clause, we had been very careful with regard to the ramifications of this clause. In effect, since no law had existed till then, it was common practice for donation of gametes to frequently occur even when only assisted insemination was being practised in Malta.

The result was of course a number of children being born to parents who were not the genetic parents with all the confusing legal and medical ramifications that go with such practice. Some members noted that adoption of children was in fact legally allowed, but it was quickly evident that this process was not similar to adoption. In adoption, one tries to solve an existing situation, that is, taking care of a child who has been legally or de facto rendered illegitimate, a real contingency. In gamete donation, one is actually allowing the creation of children who do not belong to their genetic parents but are given away to third parties often for illegal financial considerations. The children are forced to grow up in a familial environment which is not congenial to their best development or identity. Part of a child’s identity is the knowledge of its genetic parents and heritage. Every child has a right to know this and it would be a legal requisite for these children to know their genetic parents once they are 18 years old, if this procedure had to be allowed. This of course creates several legal complications including those of inheritance, which is important for the donors to know. I personally know of several cases in Malta where the allowance of these procedures in the past generated severe social and familial disorder and conflicts for the families involved.

It was because of this that the then BCC decided to ask to make the procedure illegal, as it consequently was drawn up in the Bill, and finally the Act. The Labour Party then did not object to this clause except to extol the allowing of surrogacy, which objections were then quietly withdrawn. One can clearly see that this issue has nothing to do with LGBTQI rights but with the rights of children themselves irrespective of the receiving parents. It is now obvious that the present government has had a change of heart and wants to push forward changes to the law to allow LGBTQI partners in a civil union to have children as a political expedient, something they cannot naturally have of course since nature imposes its own limitations in biology.

But an “is” does not imply an “ought” says David Hume, the father of subjective empiricism, which is true except of course when that “is”, Hume forgot to mention, is passed through the ramifications of the human mind, where natural law, Kantianism, virtue theory and any other objective ethical theory that exists, clearly shows this procedure to be highly unethical.

There is a saying which goes that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Now Minister Owen Bonnici is surely not an angel and by a process of elimination I would not like to think of him as being the obverse referred to in the saying. I strongly counsel against this move and I hope that the PN also carefully thinks about what position they would adopt on this amendment if it had to be moved in Parliament. It definitely goes against the human rights of children!

 

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