Re: Bribing Couples Into Forcibly Handing Over Their Embryos To The State. Can We Not?
“The embryo is one of us,” said the thousands who gathered in Valletta yesterday to protest against changes to the law being proposed by government to make the difficult process of IVF a little bit easier.
It’s a passionate and evocative slogan. And it must feel great to be marching the streets on behalf of something that doesn’t have a voice. But a pre-implantation embryo is not really one of us, is it?
A fertilised egg has no way of becoming a human being unless it is implanted successfully into a woman’s uterus – something many embryos fail to do, which is why creating several embryos is crucial to a better success rate of IVF.
Remember, science deems a pregnancy to have started only when an embryo is actually implanted into the uterus. A pre-implantation embryo – most of which are naturally discarded by the human body – is a very important step away from even having the potential to become ‘one of us’. One step earlier and it was still just individual sperm and egg.
“A pre-implantation embryo – most of which are naturally discarded by the human body – is a very important step away from even having the potential to become ‘one of us’. One step earlier and it was still just individual sperm and egg.”
A fairer slogan for yesterday’s march would have therefore been, ‘the embryo is one of us, kind of like sperm’.
The words we use are important in this debate. It’s no coincidence that the people rallying the troops are the same people who have spent years telling us a baby is already 9-months-old when it is born because life begins at conception. The problem here is that the pro-lifers who may usually be justified in protesting abortion are now taking things way too far.
It’s already quite a leap to say an implanted embryo should be afforded the same protection as a fully-formed and delivered baby. It’s now an incredible stretch to say we should afford these same rights to a pre-implanted embryo which, without a uterus, has no way of becoming a human being. We’re literally only one step away from demanding a law protecting unfertilized sperm and eggs.
This is part of the problem with Malta’s IVF debate. There is no logic to it because it is not really a debate about IVF at all. If we were really debating IVF, pro-lifers would by definition be all in favour of making the process easier and more conducive to actually creating life.
What really scares the embryo warriors isn’t the fate of pre-implantation embryos but that this is the gateway drug to abortion – the big a-word Malta has refused to discuss for decades.
“What really scares the embryo warriors isn’t the fate of pre-implantation embryos but that this is the gateway drug to abortion – the big a-word Malta has refused to discuss for decades.”
This is their logic: if the law allows embryos to be frozen, then it’s only a matter of time until it also allows them to be discarded, and then it’s only a matter of time before it allows them to be aborted post-implantation. Therefore, we must fight back any attempt to harm embryos, no matter at what stage they find themselves.
This is why semantics are important. The pro-lifers are simply making a mistake when they equate embryos that have already implanted in a mother’s uterus with embryos created in a lab pre-implantation. Sure, there are some ethical similarities here. After all, at both stages, the embryo has unique DNA and is a connection of the two life-forming substances: sperm and egg.
But surely the context and intention must be taken into consideration. An abortion is fundamentally anti-life in that an embryo that has already been implanted and has the natural potential to become a human being is being snuffed out. A pre-implantation embryo is created (and if necessary frozen) to facilitate life. Discarding it after life has been created and it is no longer necessary cannot be judged on the same moral grounds.
If discarding a pre-implantation embryo was akin to abortion, then every IVF procedure – where two embryos are transferred into a woman’s womb in the hope that one of them implants – would be scandalous.
And this gets us to the crux of the issue.
In all the noise about the IVF changes, there’s one key point that seems to have been overlooked and is much more worthy of a well-attended protest.
Our legislators – in their rush to appease pro-lifers enough to push through this law – have created a deeply anomalous and morally questionable situation where couples are practically being bribed to access a better chance at conceiving.
To be allowed to create five embryos per cycle instead of the current two allowable by law, couples have to sign a contract which essentially grants their pre-implantation embryos to the state and gives them up for future adoption if they are no longer needed by the couple.
How crazy is that?
“We’re essentially scaring parents away from an effective form of IVF by forcing them to accept a situation where a total stranger can one day give birth to a baby with their DNA.”
We’re essentially scaring parents away from an effective form of IVF by forcing them to accept a situation where a total stranger can one day give birth to a baby with their DNA.
I have nothing against an opt-in scenario where couples who are preoccupied by discarding an embryo can volunteer it to others who may need it. But to make this a mandatory condition for couples who just want to have better chances at conceiving is creepy, cynical and unfair to say the least. And for what purpose?
Just to appease those who have unilaterally ascribed human rights to an embryo that has not gone through the essential stage to create a pregnancy? It’s ludicrous.
We’ve literally come just one step shy of ascribing these same human rights to sperm. What’s next, making masturbation illegal unless men are ready to volunteer their ejaculation to the state?
What do you make of this point? Have your say in the comments below
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