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Edwin Vassallo Warns PN Losing Relevance As He Makes 11 Points Against IVF Law

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Former Nationalist MP Edwin Vassallo has published an open letter to current PN MPs, calling them out strongly for deciding to support a bill that allows couples to test embryos for serious genetic disorders.

“My friends, you have a choice to make,” Vassallo told MPs. “You can either stand up to be counted, speak out and represent the pain and suffering that no one is talking about, or reduce the PN into an irrelevant party with a parliamentary group that denies its own statute. It’s in your hands.”

These are the 11 arguments Vassallo raised in his letter.

1. The bill discriminates between which embryos get to live and which ones must be perpetually cryopreserved, and therefore goes against the PN’s own statute.

2. Their vote in favour is one “against people with disabilities” as the bill will “mark embryos with genetic disorders as problematic”.

3. By minimising their participation in the debate, PN MPs failed to give a voice to the most vulnerable.

4. The bill will make it easier for children to be born without ever getting to know who their genetic parents are/

5. PN MPs should have at least explained to the public why they are voting in favour of the bill, and what price their decision will cost society.

6. PN MPs who were morally convinced that the bill was ethically wrong should have requested a free vote to allow everyone to vote according to their conscience.

7. At least one MP should have said that scientific assessments of an embryo’s chances of survival are never 100%.

8. The logic that “science can help reduce human suffering” can be extended to justify surrogacy, euthanasia, and eventually abortion.

9. The PN has now lost its entire relevance as an Opposition and reduced the nation to a one-party state where sensitive issues are concerned.

10. Will any PN MP “stand up for children and families” and propose “serious amendments” to the bill at committee stage? 

11. From a political point of view, the government scored more points by pushing the bill forward than the PN MPs did by agreeing with it.

Malta’s new IVF law will introduce the concept of PGT-M, allowing prospective parents with a history of hereditary disease to screen their embryos prior to implantation.

While the likes of the UK utilise this same technology to scan embryos for hundreds of conditions, including Down’s Syndrome, cystic fibrosis and Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, Malta will initially limit it to nine serious monogenic disorders, including gangliosidosis and Huntington’s Disease.

However, the nine disorders aren’t laid out in the law but in a protocol issued by the Embryo Protection Authority, which will be able to update the list if it receives a request by a PGT-M clinic on behalf of a prospective parent.

Vassallo told Lovin Malta that he is convinced the protocol will eventually be extended to include other genetic conditions and disabilities. 

He pointed out how 80% of the council members of the Commission for the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD) recently disassociated themselves from the CRPD’s official stance in favour of the law.

Commissioner Samantha Pace Gasan

Commissioner Samantha Pace Gasan

The members warned that Commissioner Samantha Pace Gasan never discussed this statement with her board members and that the stance she took “seriously undermines the efforts made by the Maltese movement of people with disabilities over the past decades.”

“Parliament is voting in favour of legal amendments and a protocol that are intended to stop people with disabilities from being born,” Vassallo said. “In our desire to eradicate suffering, we are eliminating life.”

“This is unfair, inhumane and discriminatory with regards to people with disabilities.”

Do you agree with the new IVF law? 

READ NEXT: Valletta Protest Against Food And Property Inflation Announced For This Saturday By ADPD 

Tim is interested in the rapid evolution of human society and is passionate about justice, human rights and cutting-edge political debates. You can follow him on Instagram or Twitter/X at @timdiacono or reach out to him at [email protected]

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