Labour MP Marlene Farrugia said today she is against embryo freezing and would not support any law that would allow the controversial practice.
"I will not support the introduction of any law that compromises the protection of any born or unborn child," Dr Farrugia wrote in a Facebook post.
She warned that embryo freezing would "open the floodgates to embryo disposal."
Earlier today, Life Network Malta said it was highly concerned about a statement made by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat regarding the proposed changes to the Embryo Protection act, as published on Malta Today dated Sunday 6 September.
In a statement, the group said the front page article of this newspaper claims that embryo freezing is to be introduced as a matter of course, as will egg donation and sperm donation. It claims that success rates will be increased with freezing. This is an incorrect interpretation of the facts. Recent statistics have clearly shown that the success rate with vitrification of ova is at least as high.
There is no mention of the fundamental issue of human embryo protection in the proposed changes. Intentional freezing of human life is a grave offence to intentionally created human life. This notwithstanding the fact that, according to official statistics, we currently employ a technique that is giving good results without the need to freeze embryos.
There is no mention of the best interests of the child born of donor egg and donor sperm technologies. This is a grave injustice to the child who, with no vote and defenceless, will be orphaned at conception.
If the article in Malta Today is correct, the Inter Ministerial committee set up to review the proposed changes to the said law was nothing more than a smokescreen, and the wide consultations supposedly held with the public nothing but a farce.
Life Network Malta appealed to the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition and all MPs who are Pro-life to resist any changes that could endanger or objectify nascent human life.
The devaluation of human embryonic life sets us on the downward spiral that inevitably leads to abortion.
Malta should be proud of the techniques and pregnancy success rates we have achieved without sacrificing human embryonic lives in the process, particularly in the face of pressure from countries who legislate for abortion and who have long abandoned any respect for human embryonic lives.
The freezing of embryos and their subsequent disposal after a number of years, is no more than another form of abortion - this time carried out outside the womb.
Furthermore, sperm and egg donation, as well as surrogacy, creates children with anonymous parents. Children have a right to know their parents; children are not toys or objects of convenience, which can be bought or sold on a whim, the group said.