Health Minister Chris Fearne announced that the government will be proposing embryo freezing, however it is being tied to forced anonymous adoption of any remaining embryos to other couples or individuals.

Fearne presented the highlights of a revamped law for in-vitro fertilisation on Wednesday to members of the media. The first reading was presented in Parliament this evening while a debate is expected to take place next week.

IVF is a treatment sought by infertile couples or individual women – whether for surrogacy or to have a child as a single mother – whereby the egg and sperm are fertilised outside of the body.

The fertilised egg, or embryo, will then be implanted into a womb. Should the procedure prove successful, the embryo will then implant into the womb, and the women would then hopefully carry the pregnancy to term.

Under the current Embryo Protection Act, introduced by the Lawrence Gonzi government, embryo freezing was expressly forbidden. In order to increase the chances of successful pregnancies more than one embryo is inserted in the womb.

Due to embryo freezing being currently illegal, a woman may end up with multiple pregnancies, twins or even triplets, which can pose a significant challenge to a women’s physical health. Therefore government is proposing to legalise embryo freezing for up to three embryos in the first cycle, and up to five in the second cycle should the first cycle fail, with the aim of increasing the rate of success.

Any embryos that would no longer be needed as a result of a successful pregnancy would be frozen. Infertile couples or single women may then anonymously “adopt” an embryo that was not used by another couple.

Due to the need to be aware of any genetic illnesses or genetic predispositions to illnesses such as diabetes or heart disease, the child born through the adopted embryo will have access to their medical records after the age of 16. If the child suffers a medical condition prior to 16, the ‘adoptive’ parents will have access to the medical history.

Another notable change is that IVF will now be open to everybody, homosexual couples and/or single persons. Currently, heterosexual couples are the only category who are legally allowed to receive IVF treatment in Malta.

Due to this change, sperm and egg donation would then become legal in Malta, through sperm/egg banks.

The ability for homosexual couples or single people to make use of IVF therefore also paves the way to legalising altruistic surrogacy, meaning surrogacy without any form of payment. Surrogacy through payment would remain illegal. A public consultation on altruistic surrogacy will be launched for public feedback.

Currently, those who offer to carry another couple’s embryo may face up to three years imprisonment. Surrogacy refers to the practice of an embryo, a fertilised egg, being carried to term by a third party.

The age of which women would be able to receive IVF treatment has been raised from 43 to 48 years of age, so long as the eggs received as part of the embryo come from a woman of 35 years of younger. This would serve to improve the success rates.